‘Look In the Mirror’ by Catherine Steadman

Published by Quercus Books,
1st August 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-52943-883-3 (HB)

Catherine Steadman is a woman of many parts - quite literally, since, as well as being the author of twisty psychological thrillers, she also writes screenplays, and is an actress, appearing on stage and on screen on both sides of the Atlantic.

Look in the Mirror is her fifth standalone thriller, and a stunning tour-de-force. The opening of the book has the reader standing with Nina, a thirty-something Cambridge academic, who has recently lost her father and is dealing with his estate. A sentence on the very first page of the book sets the tone for Nina’s wry outlook on life - “The business of losing a father is a full-time, short-term contract with limited perks and a clear cutoff point.” Nina’s father had been an extraordinarily clever and accomplished man - a crossword compiler, an architect, a structural engineer, and a remorseless setter of challenges for Nina, his only child, whom he brought up as a single parent after his wife died soon after giving birth.

Amongst the paperwork Nina sorts through after her father’s death is a solicitor’s letter, informing her that her very private, very English father, has left her a house in the British Virgin Islands. Baffled - to her knowledge her father had never been to the Caribbean - Nina catches the flight the solicitors have arranged for her and travels to investigate - and perhaps to find out more about her father. Not long after she arrives, Nina finds that things are not entirely as they seem, and that she will need to be on her A-game if she is to decode the puzzles she is confronted with and survive her sojourn in the house.

As well as Nina, we also encounter Maria, a Venezuelan refugee, Yang Joon-Gi, a Korean handyman, Joe, an American construction worker, and Lucinda, an extremely wealthy woman. Their stories, woven through the book in shifting timelines, all contribute to the final unravelling of the mystery of the house, as Nina is driven almost to breaking point by the deadly hazards she must overcome.

A complex, beautifully constructed book, with striking characters, and a brilliant, deeply unsettling plot.
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Reviewer: Sarah Williams

Catherine Steadman is an actress and writer based in North London. She is known for her roles in Downton Abbey and Tutankhamun, starring alongside Sam Neill, as well as shows including Breathless, The Inbetweeners, The Tudors, and Fresh Meat. She also has appeared on stage in the West End including Oppenheimer for the RSC, for which she was nominated for a 2016 Laurence Olivier Award. 

catherinesteadman.com. 

Sarah Williams has been a professional writer for most of her adult life. She started writing under the name of Sarah Matthews, publishing translations from the French, as well as children’s information books, school textbooks, and school editions of authors such as Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Most recently, she turned to crime, and has published How to Write Crime Fiction (Robinson), a second edition of which is due in Spring 2025. There are also two crime novels in the offing.

    Follow her on Substack at https://sarahwilliamsauthor.substack.com