‘The Rich’ by Rachel Lynch

Published by Canelo,
9 November 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-80436-522-9  (PB)

One law for the rich, a different one for the rest of us. So goes a popular misconception. Or is it? Does having more money than you can possibly spend really give you the right, or even the ability, to buy your way out of trouble? That’s what Rachel Lynch explores in this serpentine, tightly plotted tale of murder,  deception and family life.

Tony Thorpe is rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams. So rich that it never occurs to him that he can’t have everything he wants – until his trophy wife Monika goes missing. Tony is in the habit of chatting to Carrie Greenside during train journeys; she has money too, earned by the kind of job no one else wants. And Carrie uses the same gym as Henry Nelson, who designed and built Tony and Monika’s very expensive bespoke kitchen; they even have the same personal trainer – Grace Bridge, who makes a good job of hiding her damaged soul behind a series of lucrative podcasts.

And then there’s Doctor Alex Moore, psychologist and therapist to Carrie, Henry and Grace, and best friends with Tony and Monika. She knows all their deepest secrets, so when Monika’s battered body turns up, the old-school SIO Detective Inspector Paul Hunt is very interested.

The lives of all these people are inextricably linked, and suspicion falls first on one, then another, leaving the reader trying to look in every direction at once. Rachel Lynch paints a vivid picture, crowded with lifestyles and attitudes ordinary folk can only imagine. She knows how to ramp up tension as the investigation progresses, and she’s equally skilled at portraying family life in all its stressful detail. Dr Alex may be able to offer solutions to other people’s problems, but her own life is a car crash. Other characters have the kind of dysfunctional backgrounds which provide the Alexes of the world with plenty of work.

I challenge anyone to work out what really happened to Monika before the police have their culprit. And even at the end, the question still hangs in the air: can money really buy a route out of the worst kind of trouble? Read it and see what you think!
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Rachel Lynch grew up in Cumbria and regularly hiked the fells from a young age. She studied History at the University of Lancaster and gained her Post graduate Certificate of Education at the Institute of Education, London. She married an Army Officer, whom she followed around the globe for thirteen years. After children led to personal training and sports therapy, but writing was always the overwhelming force driving the future. The human capacity for compassion as well as its descent into the brutal and murky world of crime are fundamental to her work.

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.