I love books that present me a real ethical dilemma and make me examine my own moral compass. Justice vs revenge. Justice vs obsession. It can be a fine line. If the justice system fails you, and the threat is still out there, is it ok to take matters into your own hand? These are just some of the themes Candlish explores in her latest novel THE HEIGHTS, and the dilemma kept me awake at night!

Candlish knows how to create a nightmare scenario. Whether it’s the loss of your home in OUR HOUSE, or nightmarish neighbours in THOSE PEOPLE, or a parent’s worst nightmare in her latest novel, these are scenarios we can relate to and dread. This could happen to you or me, out of the blue, shattering our world.

Ellen Saint has lived a parent’s worst nightmare and she is reflecting on it through an essay in a writers’ workshop after having come face to face with the person who destroyed her world. Her family life was happy until her teenage son Lucas fell under the spell of Kieran, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, a boy who dealt drugs, who led him astray and transformed her happy, bright Lucas into a sullen, rebellious young man she scarcely recognised. Afraid of Kieran herself, Ellen could only stand by helplessly and watch her child self-destruct. Until one night, her very worst fears were confirmed and her life was shattered.

It takes a while for the story to get there, and every step of the way was fraught with the kind of tension Candlish creates so effortlessly. I knew that something terrible was about to happen, and yet had to stand by helplessly, like watching a train plunge off the bridge into the abyss. If I had a chance to derail the train before the disaster, would I do it, even if there was collateral damage? Ellen has failed in averting disaster, and now all she can do is seek justice ... or revenge.

As Ellen’s story is nearing its nail-biting conclusion, we start hearing another voice, that of her ex-partner Vic’s, Lucas’ father. But hang on, his story is different from Ellen’s! Who is lying and who is telling the truth? My heart had wept for Ellen and I had trusted her completely, but I was now questioning everything I had read. I love psychological thrillers that confuse and thrill me in equal measure, and Candlish is a master at doing just that. Taking the unreliable narrator theme just one step further than the rest, the final twist came out of nowhere and punched me in the gut so hard it knocked the wind right out of me. WHAAATTTTTT????? I spluttered, having to reread the final pages to see whether I just dreamed up that particular morsel of truth that threw everything else into total chaos.

Domestic thrillers are a dime a dozen these days, and it takes a lot to surprise and wow me, but Candlish has done it again. Readers who are looking for a thriller which a) tells its story in a clever, unique format; b) wrings you out emotionally; c) makes you question your own moral compass and capacity for murder; and d) offers a final reveal so unexpected and shocking that it will sucker-punch you, should definitely pick up THE HEIGHTS and settle in for a night of intense reading. Just make sure you allow plenty of time, because you will not be able to sleep until this mystery is solved. Now, after the final reveal, I am still not sure about some of the grey areas. Did he? Did she? Who was telling the truth?

This is an addictive psychological thriller, the tale of a mother’s obsession with avenging her son’s death.

Ellen Saint, mother of Lucas and Freya is happily married to Freya’s father Justin, while her first husband Vic, Lucas’ father lives nearby. Lucas, a sixth former student, was expected to do well in his A levels, until he met Kieran Watts. New to the school and living locally in a foster home, Kieren soon becomes good friends with Lucas who begins to neglect his studies, partying on school nights and taking drugs. While Ellen and Vic were unhappy about Kieren’s influence, Justin felt Ellen was overreacting to Lucas behaving like a normal teen. However, when Lucas is killed in a terrible accident, Ellen blamed Kieran and when she sees him some years later, living in the penthouse on top of a luxury apartment building called ‘The Heights’, she is determined to get revenge for Lucas’ death.

The novel opens with Ellen taking part in a writing group where she is writing the story of her quest to make Kieran pay for Lucas’ death. Told mostly from her point of view, and that of Lucas’ father Vic, as well as a journalist writing an article about Ellen, we see the different ways in which Ellen, Vic, Justin and Lucas’ sister Freya treat Kieran. None of them are honest with each other, least of all with Ellen whose obsession with Kieran drives her to behave in ways she wouldn’t have dreamt of previously. While not a fast paced thriller, there is a tense atmosphere throughout the novel and its original plot will keep you guessing right up to the end where the author throws in a twist I did not see coming.

Ooh, excellent psychological thriller, not spine tingly but enough twists to keep me guessing till the end. Structured in such a way that for the most part the narrator, Ellen Saint is writing her own story in a writing class. Between are excerpts from a newspaper feature on her, and there are also chapters later in the book about Vic Gordon, her ex partner and father of her son Lucas. Lucas has a schoolfriend called Kieran, Ellen dislikes him almost immediately. Drugs, partying instead of studying, Lucas is causing all sorts of worry for Ellen and she blames Kieran. There’s a group of supporting characters and it’s all very well written, all their obvious flawed personalities become more obvious as the story progresses. The pace makes it difficult to put down and there’s moments when you feel uncomfortable as you realise your sympathies were misplaced.
A very enjoyable read.

Ellen, Lucas' mother, never liked Kieran Watts from the very beginning as she thinks that Kieran brought bad influence to Lucas. But, is Kieran as bad as she thinks?
As the twists and turns are distributed evenly along the story, I don't want to tell too much as it'll give away the twists of the story.
An excellent read that grips from start to finish,  seriously you'll enjoy the twists again and again.

Louise Candlish The Heights Simon & Schuster, 2021

Thank you, Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for this uncorrected proof copy for review.

Louise Candlish has had me immersed in her fictional worlds from when I was introduced to her work through Our House. Now I have had the pleasure of engagement in such novels as Those People, The Sudden Departure of the Frasers, and The Other Passenger. Of course, there are more, but one of the pleasurable features of opening yet another Louise Candlish novel is that each has something different to recommend it. Although they are often introduced with comments about the twists and turns, this phrase has become overused. What I want is a twist that is smooth, is logical, and has a background in the information I already have about the plot and characters. In The Heights Louise Candlish has accomplished this once again.

Candlish’s novel begins in a library where a writing group is in its third meeting with the writing instructor. One attendee is a journalist; another is a woman who has no notion of how to begin her story. Although the instructor, Felix Penney, is named, an unnamed member of the group, who is ‘closer to fifty than forty’ and ‘has a quality to her that’s impossible to tear your eyes from. A charisma. A pathos’ is to become the key character, Ellen Saint. The novel is divided into three parts. Part One, Killing Time and Saint or Sinner, features the writing course, where Ellen as the author of Saint or Sinner becomes the principal character; Part Two, Killing Time, turns to Vic Gordon, her first husband, who tells the story from his perspective, ‘now and then’; Part Three, Saint or Sinner returns to Ellen; Part Four, Killing Time, features the journalist from the writing course, then Vic, Ellen, and Kieran. Each Part moves the stories along with a level of empathy with the predominant characters while ensuring that their flaws become apparent. At the same time as peripheral characters become more closely identified with Kieran and Ellen’s relationship, seeming clarity about events shows them to be more complex. The reader is forced into the lives of Ellen and her family, Kieran and his past and present relationships, and events that seamlessly link the events and characters into a tense whole.

Many of these events are shown through Ellen Saint’s novel, Saint or Sinner, which follows the introduction in the library. She begins with a sighting of a person who has been dead for two years. This ‘monster’ who destroyed the writer’s life, stands on the roof of a building in Shad Thames, a redevelopment. The redevelopment changes a formerly shadowy, poor dock region of London into a glossy area of high rise, roof gardens, and, fortunately for Ellen, small windows that provide a large market for the extravagant luxurious lighting she designs. She is working when she sees Kieran Watts, on the highest building in the area, possibly about to throw himself off? Not him, the strong controlling man of Ellen and her family’s bad dreams, But Ellen who, in his situation might well do so – she suffers from ‘high place phenomenon’. She ends her first chapter with a compelling statement, from which the remainder of her novel advances.

From Ellen’s perspective, Kieran Watts is manipulative, dangerous to her and her family, and a constant source of fear because of his malign influence on her son Lucas. Lucas is her child from her first marriage to Victor. He has been chosen by his school to provide support for Kieran who has been fostered by a family from the school catchment area. From Lucas’s perspective Kieran is a wonderful addition to his life; Freya, Ellen’s child from a second marriage to Justin, is initially ‘just a younger sister’ and almost immune to events; and Justin, despite Ellen’s concerns, wants to keep the peace. The family dynamics, including Vic’s sympathy with Ellen’s distresses (and they are many, and pronounced) keep the tension at a high level, without becoming theatrical. Ellen’s concerns feel real, she involves the reader in what might, under calmer circumstances, be seen as prejudices – but the pace prevents a calming look at what is happening or might be happening.

Immersion into Louise Candlish’s fictional world in The Heights is far from comfortable. But once again, it is worth the discomfort, as is any exhilarating journey, fictional or not.