‘Just Between Us’ by Adele Parks

Published by HQ,
28 March 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-00-844439-6 (PB)

Kylie Gillingham is missing, presumed dead. For years she lived two lives, married to two men. To Mark Fletcher she was Leigh, a loving wife and stepmother to his two sons Oli and Seb, and with rich businessman Daan Janssen she led a glamorous life as Kai, until a few weeks ago when she disappeared after being exposed as a bigamist. One of her husbands is under investigation for her murder, and there’s a shadow over the other. The wealth of circumstantial evidence is probably enough to secure a conviction, but Kylie’s body has never been found, and Detective Constable Clements, assigned to the case, has reservations. A lot of them.

Emotions are running high in the Fletcher household, especially now that Fiona, Kylie’s erstwhile best friend, has moved in. Oli and Seb are wary of her, and twelve-year-old Seb is convinced his beloved stepmother is alive. Everything is made more complicated because it’s 2020, and Covid lockdown restrictions mean nothing can happen the way it should.

And then there’s Stacie, living in an isolated cottage with her father. Following treatment for brain cancer, she has lost her memory and is desperate to regain some sense of who she is.

Just Between Us is a sequel; it follows directly on from the events which led to Kylie’s disappearance. I came to it from a point of no knowledge, but I soon found it didn’t matter; I was soon absorbed in the family life of the Fletchers, Daan Janssen’s careful unpicking of the evidence against him, and most of all in Stacie’s story, which seems to happen in parallel, unconnected to the hunt for Kylie and evidence against her killer.  

The characters may have had a previous life, but Adele Parks is an accomplished writer, and makes sure they come across loud and clear to readers unfamiliar with the earlier book. A layer of desperation underpins everyone’s life, and they all handle it differently. I especially enjoyed Seb and Oli, each dealing in his own way with huge trauma, adolescence, and the trials of lockdown; and Kenneth, Stacie’s father, coping with issues only he knows about.

Another of Parks’s strengths is creating atmosphere. The damp grey blanket that grief throws over everything; the near-hysterical euphoria when lockdown restrictions are lifted; a growing sense of menace and tension as the truth begins to unfold: all are almost palpable.

It’s one of those novels which makes you long for a happy ending for at least some of the people involved. Finding out whether or not they get it is only one reason to read this twisty thriller; there are plenty more besides: characters to warm to or loathe; a great sense of place; and most of all plain old-fashioned good writing. It should garner new fans for Adele Parks.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Adele Parks MBE was born in North Yorkshire and has lived in Botswana, Italy and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey. She is the author of twenty-two bestselling novels including the recent Sunday Times hit and audible Number One sensation One Last Secret. She is translated into 31 different languages. She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency: two charities that promote literacy in the UK. She is a judge for the Costa Awards. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

Connect with Adele Parks on Twitter @adeleparks, Instagram @adele_parks and Facebook @OfficialAdeleParks 

www.adeleparks.com

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.