Matthew and Charlie invite new book club member Rachel to the house for dinner one night. Just a quiet night at home with the two of them and their teenage son Titus, whom she met when she came upon him being bullied and she ran the guys off. Dinner ends with Matthew dead and Rachel gripping the bloody knife in her hand as she calls 999.
I had a bit of push-pull of emotions over this book, not especially strong ones either way. At best, I liked it ok, something I am glad I read because the cover was intriguing but I will never want to read it again. At worst, I found it at times a bit boring, unnecessarily complex, and I felt like the last chapter was completely unneccessary. I know this sounds harsh and I apologize, but I am just trying to be honest. Overall, I would give it a 2-1/2 to a 3, so I will round it up to a 3.
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I love a good locked-room mystery and lucky for me this was even more. Part mystery, part psychological thriller the reader is taken for a ride as we try to find out what exactly happened to Matthew. Was it Rachel, who has already confessed and holds the murder weapon? Or was it someone else? Told from multiple POVs and multiple points in time, this book kept me guessing over and over again. I absolutely loved the start, we know something is wrong, we are immediately lead not to like Charlie, but why? Was Charlie the murderer? Could it be their son Titus- surely not? Make sure you have some free time when you pick this up because you are NOT going to want to put it down until the deadly end.

5/5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Dinner Guest by B.P. Walter is a dark domestic noir thriller. The story starts with the murder of Matthew. Matthew is married to Charlie and they have a son named Titus. Matthew is stabbed at the dinner table and the only ones present are Charlie, Titus and Rachel - a woman they met at a bookstore a year ago. Rachel calls the police and tells them she murdered Matthew. But that isn't the case.. Or is it?

The story is well-written and fast-paced. It is full of twists and turns, although I did find out pretty quickly how the murder took place. The characters have interesting and mysterious backstories. It's a simple but intriguing story and I would recommend this book to readers who like a suspenseful thriller.

Matthew has been stabbed during dinner with his husband and son.
The murderer confessed. Case solved.
Only it isn't as easy as it appears.


This was a book that hooked me right from the first pages.
It was fast-paced and full of twists. I was so desperate to find out Rachel's intentions that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.
It's one of those books where you think you've got it all figured out, but that later proves that all your assumptions were wrong.
The twist was really unexpected, however, I found the killer's motive a bit disappointing.
Overall though, it was a great and entertaining read, and I will be sure to check out the author's other books.

‘Charlie didn’t want her at the book club. Matthew wouldn’t listen.

And that’s how Charlie finds himself slumped beside his husband’s body, their son sitting silently at the dinner table, while Rachel calls 999, the bloody knife still gripped in her hand.’

THE DINNER GUEST is a multi-perspective narrative written in alternating chapters and timelines as seen through the eyes of Charles Allerton-Jones'—husband to Matthew and Father of fifteen-year-old Titus, and Rachel—a perfect stranger Charles meets at a Bookstore and later the market where Matthew insists on inviting her to his Book Club and upon doing so, their lives.

I wanted to like this book, but…

I couldn’t stand many of the characters (which is the author's intent) specifically, Charles, a prudish elitist snob who looks down upon Rachel, who he considers one of the lower-class poor, undeserving of being a part of or in the presence of the Upper-class collective.

Don't get me wrong, I love a book with a deplorable villain and even one that has some redeemable qualities, however, having to be submerged in Charles’ mindset for the majority of the narrative was nauseating, to say the least.

The one aspect of the synopsis that drew me to want to read the book is that it’s a who-done-it, so having characters depicted with potential motives for murder are essential. However, I personally would have preferred to view it from the perspective of an outsider looking in.

Thank you, NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishing UK, for loaning me an eGalley of THE DINNER GUEST in the request of an honest review.

Scheduled For Release – April 1, 2021 (Subject To Change)

I was totally gripped throughout this read, absolutely drawn in by the slow trickle of information and trying to work out what the characters weren't telling us. The dual timeline made for plenty of cliffhangers between chapters, making this a true page-turner. Overall, the enjoyable factor of this read was through the roof!

I found the cast of characters very interesting. A highly unlikable group of people, which I often enjoy, but that unlikableness often came from a political backdrop to this story that I wasn't expecting—a push and pull between upperclass conservative snobbery and the "woke" left. I didn't feel like there was a clear point of view from the author or good payoff for this element to be included.

Unfortunately, the ending of this book was a bit of a let down. The final revelation about the motive for the murder felt a bit underwhelming and some threads that I was hoping to see come into play never really went anywhere. Maybe that's on me, expecting something that was never promised. This was definitely leans more domestic mystery than thriller.

Overally, I was craving a mystery and this hit the spot... mostly. Will probably be picking up some of B.P. Walter's other work in the future!

The suspense builds from the opening chapter, when we are told right away that Matthew has been killed at the dinner table and Rachel confesses to his murder. But wait! Why does Charlie say she’s innocent?
The questions snowball from there – who is Rachel? Who knows what? Did their teenage son, Titus, see anything? Will he say anything?

Rachel has inserted herself into Charlie and Matthew’s world, first bumping into them at the grocery store, then joining Matthew’s book club. Charlie is suspicious from the get-go and the more we see of Matthew’s character, the more we see of his pretentiousness and snarky personality, while Matthew remains outgoing and friendly. Then Rachel ingratiates herself with Charlie’s godmother and gets one step closer to the household. Between alternating views from Charlie and Rachel, Walter builds an incredible backstory that goes all the way back before Charlie and Matthew were a couple, up until the final reveal into what surely (I hope!) will become a sequel.

5 big bright stars to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK/One More Chapter for providing an advanced reader’s copy for review.

The was the first thriller I had picked up in a while and after finishing it I’m not entirely sure that it was a thriller 😂

The Dinner Guest starts with a murder, so you know right away where this is headed. It alternates between Charlie, the deceased’s husband, and Rachel, the person who admitted to the murder. Because you already know who is being killed, it felt kind of slow and less of a thriller. It got into the some family dynamics, which I liked.

⚠️CW: this did have some material with a minor having sex with an adult. This part really didn’t sit well with me and I don’t think it added to the story.

Thank you to @harpercollins and @netgalley for this copy of #thedinnerguest

Charlie and Matthew Allerton-Jones are a gay married couple raising their son Titus, who's fifteen-years-old. Until recently, things seemed fine in the Allerton-Jones household, which has the advantage of close ties with Charlie's parents and his godmother Meryl.

Then Matthew is stabbed to death at the Allerton-Jones' dinner table, and a young woman named Rachel calls the police and admits to the murder. However, we're immediately told that she didn't do it. To unveil what happened and why, the book skips back and forth between twelve months ago, when Charlie and Matthew met Rachel, to the present.

A year ago, Rachel was working in a Yorkshire gardening center and barely making ends meet when she happened to come across Charlie Allerton-Jones' Instagram account. The account - which featured myriad photos of Charlie, Matthew, and Titus - galvanized Rachel, who pulled up stakes, moved to London, and managed to 'accidently' meet Charlie and Matthew. Matthew, who was a friendly sort, invited Rachel to join his book club, which met once a month in the posh home of one of the members.

Rachel grew up in difficult circumstances, could only afford an apartment in a rough area of Pimlico, and was unaccustomed to mingling with London's 'elite', but she eagerly accepted the book club invitation. Rachel then proceeded to inveigle herself into the lives of the Allerton-Jones' and their friends. Before long, Rachel was even offered a job by Charlie's godmother Meryl, who seemed to want to give the girl a boost up.

Though most people in the book club liked Rachel, something about her made Charlie uncomfortable. Thus Charlie constantly griped to Matthew about the young woman being around. However, Matthew said Charlie was just being a snob, and pooh-poohed his concerns.

As the story unfolds we learn why Rachel was drawn to the Allerton-Jones', her clandestine back story, and the secrets other people are keeping.

Towards the latter part of the book, we discover why Matthew was stabbed, the identity of the killer, and what happens after the homicide. Meanwhile, Charlie's father - who's a 'fixer' for the rich and powerful - tries to make sure his son and grandson are absolved of any blame.

The book is character driven, and the protagonists all have personality flaws. Matthew is sneaky and evasive; Charlie is naïve and willfully blind; Titus is irresponsible and rebellious; and Rachel has all sorts of troubles.

The big reveal and its aftermath aren't quite credible to me. I also have trouble believing how lightning fast Rachel ascended in society under the auspices of Charlie's godmother. I simply don't think this would happen in real life.

Thus, the book is only so-so for me.

Thanks to Netgalley, B.P. Walter, and HarperCollins Publishers for a copy of the book.

This story was wild! We have two narrators, Rachel and Charlie. Neither is particularly likeable but they are intriguing. We also have two timelines, one leading up to the murder and one that starts right after the murder. I was about a third of the way through the book when I realized I had no clue where it was going. I highly recommend!

I really enjoyed The Dinner Guest. It had me hooked from the first sentence and I didn't want to put it down. It was exactly what I love in a book - I think I know where the plot is going then there are so many twists that I am kept on the edge of my seat, not knowing how it is all going to end.
I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC.

There’s nothing I like more than a gripping psychological thriller, and I just lost my weekend to this one!

I was hooked from the beginning. Told from multiple POV over different timelines, this story just unfolded wonderfully. It was utterly compelling. I found the pace spot on - drip fed snippets of information to piece together as a result of the very clever character development. Like the plot, the characters played with your mind. They were intriguing, sometimes likeable, sometimes unlikeable. The more I found out, the more I realised I didn’t know!

Great descriptive writing style (I found a couple of Spotify playlists out of this book!) with some deliciously sarcastic humour, this had me engaged right up to the final revelations at the end. I wasn’t personally surprised by the revelation of who was responsible but there were definitely a few twists that did surprise me and the ending was unexpected!

This was my first B P Walter book, but I’ve already added his other books to my TBR list. Thoroughly recommend to anyone who loves a twisty and compelling psychological thriller with a splash of sarcasm.

Matthew and Charlie have a perfect life. Well they must do as the pictures that Matthew posts of them and their adopted teenage son Titus on Instagram say so. Well maybe pictures betray the truth?

We start this novel with the murder of Charlie. He is at the dinner table having been stabbed to death. Present are husband Matthew, som Titus and Rachel, a friend that Matthew and Charlie have known for a year, who they bumped into accidentally in a book store and has become central in all of their lives. She is holding the knife and calling 999 confessing to a murder we are told she did not commit.

The rest of the book is told going back and forth in time from the points of view of both Matthew and Rachel. We discover more about the wealthy and privileged upbringing that Matthew and Charlie both had and the differences between that and the more lowly upbringing of Rachel. We see the events that lead up to the murder of Charlie and it’s really not until almost the end that all the pieces are unveiled in a great and intriguing puzzle completion.

The whole book centres around the why. Why would someone confess to a murder they didn’t commit? Why was seemingly affable Charlie murdered? Why do Charlie and Matthew allow their teenage son to behave as he does?

The past and what happened to the central characters is the answer in part to these questions and the telling of them is very good and keeps your interest until the end. The book does have some odd unanswered questions and things that don’t quite tie up, hence the 4 star rating as opposed to 5, however I would definitely recommend this as a domestic thriller with good pace, plot and twists to keep the reader engaged.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great read.
The book begins with the night of the murder. Rachel is holding the knife and calls the Police and says, “I did it.”
Charlie and his son Titus are taken to the Police station too, but will they find out the truth?
The book goes back and forth between the past and present and we learn how Rachel came into Charlie and Matthew’s life.
There’s quite a lot of characters to keep track of once we hear about the past but I think I kept up!
Charlie’s mum suspects all is not what it seems and has to do some digging to find out what and who caused Matthew’s death.
The final few chapters were a surprise and I didn’t expect it to end as it did but I still really enjoyed this book.
Thanks to Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Matthew is out shopping with his husband Charlie when he strikes up a conversation with fellow shopper, Rachel. It’s just a funny coincidence that they see her again in the bookshop they go to next isn’t it ? And if she loves books too, why shouldn’t Matthew invite her to his book group? Except that none of this is a coincidence and it’s the beginning of the end for Matthew.

“The dinner guest” has everything I want from a book. I was sucked into the story immediately when I read about the moments after Matthew’s death and Rachel’s confession. By the end of chapter one, it’s obvious that all is not as it seems and I couldn’t wait to read on.
I found the dual narratives from Charlie and Rachel really interesting, each of them offering up snippets of motivation, back story and secrets. It’s a real page turner and if I had to begrudgingly stop reading, I was still thinking about the characters and events of the book until I picked it up again. I loved B.P Walter’s style of writing and his characters, particularly Charlie with his snide, sarcastic humour. Interspersed with all the tension and sinister events were moments where I laughed out loud - Charlie trying to dramatically slam his book shut and failing miserably because it’s a flimsy paperback, for example.
There’s twist after twist that had me reeling and racing to find out exactly what happened. I feel like I have discovered a new favourite author. The is the perfect book for anyone who is a fan of the murder mystery and psychological thriller genres.

Thanks to One More Chapter, Netgalley and B.P. Walter for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest view.

Charlie Allerton’s husband Matthew has been murdered in the kitchen. Rachel, their new friend and dinner guest, has already confessed and is going to prison. But is that it? Told from two different timelines, pre-murder and post-murder, we get a glimpse into the “perfect” life of Charlie and Matthew with their son Titus and as more comes out, things aren’t as perfect as they seem and Rachel, their dinner guest, isn’t just a random dinner guest as they thought.

I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish with this gripping domestic thriller. One of my favorite things about thrillers is when you are reading from a character’s perspective that gives you their point of view but doesn’t exactly show you everything. Told from Charlie and Rachel’s points of view, I loved how their story weaved together and without giving too much away, how poor Titus turned out.

Wow!! This book is one of the reasons I love thrillers so much. I think the plot is going one way, and then you take a sharp turn knocking you off your feet! Thank you so much for this copy to review I am not disappointed!

4,5 Stars

Well, this book was a surprise. Somehow I did expect a different story than the one I got. I thought there would be a dinner party and at the end someone is dead. A locked room mystery. But there is much more to this story than that.

Charlie and Matthew are happily married. Or we at least we are getting the impression that they are happily married. They have an adopted son, Titus. A lovely boy who loves to bake. Or at least we get the impression that he is a nice boy. One day Charlies has a short encounter with a woman in a book store while doing some shopping with his husband. Just minutes later they ran into her again in another store. But this time Matthew talks to her and the nice and open guy that he is he invites this woman, Rachel, to be part of their book club. Rachel seems lovely but Charlie dislikes her. There is something about her that irritates him and her suddenly being everywhere and worming her way into their circle makes him suspicious. Right at the beginning we learn that Matthew ends up stabbed to death. There were only Charlie, Titus and Rachel present when he died. Rachel holds the knife, calls the police and confesses. But can we be sure that she is really the one who stabbed Matthew?

The story is told from Charlie’s and Rachel’s POV. There are also two timelines. One who leads up to the crime and the other is in the present after Matthew died. Somehow I expected that most of the story was set at a dinner party but there is nothing of that sort. Actually, I don’t know why the book is called The Dinner Guest. But never mind. I immensely enjoyed this character driven story. None of the characters is very likable. There is a lot about class differences in England which I found highly entertaining. I went almost blind into this book and I think this is the way you should do, too. The writing is engaging and the twists keep you guessing what is going on. I just found that toward the end there is a bit too much talking and everything goes a bit over the top. It is a highly unlikely story with a lot of convenient coincidences. But it is such an entertaining story and so well written. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it.

This book is unique, both in tone and in its setup, and is a welcome addition to the thriller genre.

The book begins just how I like all my thrillers to begin...with a murder. Only this murder has an interesting twist...our narrator tells us that the person who confessed to the crime did not actually do it. Why then would they confess? The rest of the book then goes on to answer that question as we focus on golden couple Matthew and Charlie, a wealthy and somewhat aristocratic English couple raising a child named Titus. Let me pause here to say I don’t think we have enough gay protagonists and gay couples in our domestic thrillers, so I liked this right away. Both Charlie and Matthew are immediately intriguing, as is their son, Titus.

The book is alternately narrated by two of the people present at the murderous dinner party, Charlie and Rachel. Charlie and his husband have an Instagram-perfect life, but of course like most things on Instagram, there are darker things happening under the surface. Rachel is a friend who insinuates herself into their lives and whom Charlie immediately mistrusts.

I really liked the way the characters and relationships unfolded in the book. The beginning and the end were great and the middle was engrossing, if at times a bit slow, but that was in large part because it was heavy on the interesting character development.

I will say that I did not find the revelation of the killer at all surprising, partly because the author does such a great job painting them as an obvious creeper from the start. But also, there’s more than one obvious creeper in this story...or maybe they all are?...so I don’t think I’ve given anything away here.

I thought this book was a standout. I enjoyed the gossip and everyday life details of the upper-crust folks and their secrets and thought the writing was superb. I’d love to read more by this author. Solid 4+ stars!

Thank you to Harper Collins, NetGalley and the author for the advanced copy!

Four people are having dinner but only 3 will be alive by the end of the meal.

So many feelings!
Mathew is a good father. Charlie is a devoting husband. Rachel is the friendly stranger and Titus is the perfect son. Is it always what it looks like? Well, it is, when one of them confesses to the murder... or is it?

This book was a rollercoaster with a lot of secrets, twists and leaving me with a messy number of thoughts when I thought I actually had it all figured out and I didn’t.

The book is narrated by Charlie and Rachel. And if I thought Charlie could be a bit pretensions and spoiled and... well, overall just not very likeable then I had Rachel with the mysterious past and secrets. I wouldn’t say they are likeable characters but you get so invested that, even when you don’t like them, you still want to read and find out what happened.

The book is intriguing, juicy and engrossing and I really liked how the very visible differences between privileged and lower classes have been portrayed.

This was my first book by BP Walter but will for sure not be the last and if you also love great psychological books I can’t recommend you this book enough!

I would like to thank One More Chapter for an advanced digital copy of this book as part of this fantastic Readalong.