Book Review - The Other Half By Charlotte Vassell

 

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

My Rating - ★★★★☆

Goodreads - 3.68/5

Genre - Crime - Mystery/Thriller

This is Charlotte Vassell's debut novel and I was kindly given a copy via Netgalley to read in return for my honest review. Published on 19th January 2023.

The Other half is available to purchase in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and Audiobook. 

Synopsis

The night before -

Rupert's 30th is a black tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald's - catered with cocaine and Veuve Clicquot.

The morning after -

His girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath. All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally.

This investigation is going to be about Classics degrees and aristocrats, Instagram influencers and who knows who. Or is it whom? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn't sure. He's sharply dressed, smart, and as into self-improvement as Clemmie - but as he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxury, a wall of staggering wealth threatens to shut down his investigation before it's begun.

Can he see through the tangled set of relationships in which the other half live, and die, before the case is taken out of his hands?

My Review.

The Other Half was a slow to get going sort of book. Lots of characters were introduced quite quickly because of the party and I felt like I couldn’t keep up with who was who. This made me unsure who was relevant, who I needed to remember and I felt confused by it all. 

At times it left me wondering if I could be bothered to keep reading!

As the story progressed (around half way through) the main characters became established and the story started to flow better, became easier to read. That’s when I felt things really got going, it meant that I wanted to keep reading, wanted to find out what was going to happen and I even struggled to put the book down.

A sudden surprise confession to the murder put a new spin on things, not all was what it seemed and there was going to be some twists, this made it more exciting and it went from, can I be bothered to read this to, I've got five minutes I can just squeeze another chapter in. 

I certainly didn’t predict the outcome, In fact it left me pleasantly surprised.

 Although, I’m left wondering about some of characters, what happened to Nell, Alex and Rupert and did Caius get back with Héloise? For me I think it just needed a few more questions answering before it finished. 

Its taken me a while to write this review as I could not truly decide on what rating to give. The slow, character heavy start put me off and I wanted to give three stars but, it felt unfair as once it got going it became an enjoyable, unpredictable story, and that's why I've settled for four stars. 

This debut novel has certainly put Charlotte Vassell on my radar and I will be keeping an eye out for more.

I would like to thank Charlotte Vassell, Faber and Faber Ltd and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this debut novel.