Pacey, each short chapter flips between the points of view of three central characters — Laura, Miriam and Carla — with others seen through the eyes of Theo (Carla’s husband) and Irene (a meddling elderly neighbour). Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Riverhead for this incredible ARC in exchange for mt honest opinion. Fast-paced , highly charged and carried off with so much confidence that it is impossible to resist . A treat: utterly readable, moving in parts and saturated with the kind of localised detail that made The Girl on the Train so compelling .

The ingenious beginning snared me and I was held by the subtly powerful plot, such a difficult thing to do well and here, seemingly effortless. It’s deliciously twisty and just when you think everything has been resolved, there’s one more twist waiting. The story is narrated in the POV of various characters with each of them elucidating their innocence. Pages later, we meet Miriam, who lives on a houseboat in London’s Regent’s Canal and “likes to keep an eye on things. A Slow Fire Burning is an atmospheric, suspenseful, psychotic thriller that will have you gripping the edge of your seat.She ran the tips of her wrinkled fingers back and forth over her beautiful, bone-white scars: hip, thigh, shoulder, back of skull. Each person the spotlight falls on seems to be hiding something and as additional information is progressively fed in I found that my perception of what was going on in the background was subtly (or sometime not so subtly) challenged. Pike makes deft work of these unreliable narrators who span several generations, imbuing their voices with a defensiveness and vulnerability born from past disappointments and trauma. From the first sentence to the last, this explosive, startling novel grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. The young woman Laura, a tragic past, I felt sorry for and Irene a older woman, with a big heart, the only character I actually liked.

There are numerous characters seen leaving the crime scene reportedly by his nosey neighbor Miriam, who has a side story of her own tying the Twist and turns and complicating who did it.It was a bright morning, cold for March, though white buds on glossy new branches of plane and birch hinted at spring.

The detective was nodding again, noting all this down, and Miriam felt sure it wouldn't take him long to figure out exactly who she was talking about.A narrowboat is not a comfortable environment for a tall man, and this was a very tall man, with a head like a cue ball and a perturbed expression, as though heÕd been expecting to do something else today, something fun, like taking his kids to the park, and now he was here with her, and he wasnÕt happy about it. From the first sentence to the last, this explosive , startling novel grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. The first half of the book was a bit slow and it took some time to figure out each character's personality and how it played into the storyline. Paula Hawkins bestselling debut novel The Girl on The Train, which has since been given the Hollywood treatment starring Emily Blunt, sold 23 million copies.