‘Auld Acquaintance’ by Sofia Slater

Published by Swift Press,
3 November 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-80075047-0 (HB)

A remote island. A party of disparate guests, each invited – or lured – there in a different way. No internet, no phone and a storm brewing, so no chance of contact with the outside world. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?   

When it starts there are seven people in the crumbling old mansion on the small island in the Hebrides, gathered for a New Year’s party which means something different to each of them. Millie and James arrive together, on what turns out to be the last ferry for several days. Millie is out of work and in need of a party to lift her spirits; she expects to meet up with some old friends. James’s motivation is less clear. The first person they encounter is Mrs Flyte, owner of the mansion, harassed and grumpy because her helpers haven’t turned up.

Already there are upmarket Winston, waspish because he expected to have the place to himself; glamorous internet influencer Bella and her gorgeous boyfriend Ravi; and Penny, a former work colleague of Millie’s, whom she expected – and hoped – never to see again.

The house is shabby, run down and decorated in what can only be called an eccentric style. Mrs Flyte clearly isn’t coping well. And the guest list is a long way from what Millie expected.

Then it begins. On the morning of New Year’s Eve Penny’s body is found at the foot of a cliff. The phone works briefly, but as the threatened storm begins to blow up it is cut off. Food supplies are running low, with no chance of replenishment until the storm abates. And Mrs Flyte succumbs to a heart condition – or does she? Instead of the cheerful party Millie was expecting, the holiday begins to take on a nightmare quality.

When I finished reading, I wasn’t sure if it was meant seriously, or as pastiche of Golden Age mystery fiction, but then I realized it didn’t matter. I’d raced through it – always the sign of an unputdownable thriller – and been thoroughly diverted by the interplay between a group of people no one would ever want to spend a weekend with. It was pacy, it was entertaining, and even after I’d sussed out what was going on (without the sinister row of figures on the mantelpiece which tumble one by one as the body count rises), it was jolly good fun.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Sofia Slater was raised in the American West, and lived in France, Scotland and Oxford before settling in London. As well as writing fiction, she translates from French and Spanish. Auld Acquaintance is her debut novel.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.