‘What I Told My Friends’ by Alice Leigh

Published by Canelo Crime,
25 February 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-255-6 (PB)

The novel begins with a short prologue in which we are told that that the head girl of a prestigious boarding school has been murdered in the past. There is an invitation by the narrator to consider what part we played in the death (at this point who ‘we’ is or are is not further explained) and whether ‘we’ are to blame. 

The story proper starts as Chloe Carter meets Simon Aides, her former music teacher, as he is released from prison. He has haunted her thoughts for the twenty years since she was a talented pianist on a music scholarship at Hill High Manor, one who was expected to read music at Cambridge. She had gone there for her final year of school after an initially unexplained incident at the comprehensive in Essex she had previously attended. Chloe comes from a more modest background than most of the girls at High Hill and finds it difficult to settle in at first. She is not helped by the attitude of Emily Ashbourne, the head girl, who seems to target her and to find fault in everything she does. Emily also makes it clear that she knows the reason why Chloe had to leave her previous school but does not say how she gained the information. Chloe is befriended by Iris, the daughter of the head. They become more than friends, and complications arise. Iris self-harms: Chloe is very sensitive about this as her artist father has attempted suicide in the past. She also has a rather unsatisfactory relationship with Francesca, another girl with whom Iris is also very friendly. 

We are taken back through the events leading up to Emily’s murder. An unauthorised beach party is important, not only for the consequences of bringing the girls together with boys from a neighbouring school; in some ways brings it matters to a head. There are flashes forwards to Chloe and Aides and their relationship after his release as well as Chloe’s relations with others who were at the school at the time of Emily’s murder. The appearance of a journalist helps in unravelling the mystery. The main threads of the story concern people’s actions and motives, the lies and indeed the truth they tell (or suppress), even the blackmail they may deal in. It gets to the point at one stage where Chloe feels bad even though she knows she is telling the truth. A central plank of the plot is why Aides never appealed against his sentence if he maintained his innocence. 

This is a well-plotted, well-narrated and always interesting story which holds the reader’s attention up to the final twists. Relations between the characters are vivid, often intense. There is a lot to keep in mind. Enthusiastically recommended. 

PS As a former music teacher I feel compelled to point out that Chloe would have had to do a lot more than just play the piano well to get into Cambridge as seems to be suggested here. The procedure in the novel seemed more akin to that of an audition to gain entry into a music conservatoire rather than a university. And it was a surprise to find a professor as head of the school. What was he doing there, and of what was he a professor? It would have been interesting to know.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

Alice Leigh lives in Limassol, Cyprus. Her novels written under the pseudonym, Michelle Adams, have sold in twenty territories. She has written for publications including the Daily Mail and and The Guardian.

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then.