The Split
Sharon Bolton
Trapeze/Orion Publishing, June 2020
ISBN 978-1-4091-7419-6
Hardback
Minotaur Books, May 2020
ISBN 978-1-250-30005-8
Hardcover
I’ve been a fan of Sharon Bolton’s for a number of years. She started out writing as S.J. Bolton no doubt because initials didn’t give away the fact that she was a woman. At any rate The Split is her newest standalone and in truth I have mixed feelings about this book. It’s opening quickly draws you in as we meet Felicity Lloyd who is a glaciologist working on the remote Island of South Georgia in the Antarctic Circle.
Felicity is worried, very worried. A cruise ship, the last of the season, is arriving and she soon learns that one of the passengers, Freddie, is the man she’s been running from for close to a year. She believes he wants to kill her, but she has no idea why.
To find out the reason behind her fears we jump back in time, to nine months previously. Felicity is in Cambridge, England. She has been found, her clothes torn, her face and body bruised and bleeding, with no memory of what happened to her. She is now undergoing a psychiatric assessment, that’s why she’s in Dr. Joe Grant’s office. She needs to pass this assessment in order to return to work.
Joe has his own problems but he likes Felicity and wants to help. For the next third of the book we get to know Felicity a little more. Strange things keep happening to her. She is attacked and she’s also sure someone is getting into her house while she sleeps. Her car goes missing and her fear and tension steadily escalates, leaving her petrified that she’s going insane.
Several street people, people Felicity knows, have gone missing and a body is found. Is Felicity involved? She doesn’t know for sure and neither does Joe, who is growing more anxious about his patient. Joe’s mother, Delilah, is a detective who is certain Felicity knows more than she is saying, and might well be a suspect.
I read a review of this book (after I’d finished it), and had to agree with the reviewer, who praised Sharon Bolton’s meticulous research, but wondered, as I did, that it seemed obvious what was happening to Felicity. That Joe and his detective mother should have reached a similar conclusion within the story.
This didn’t stop me from reading its thrilling conclusion.
But I’m still thinking and wondering about it. But while I came away feeling a little disappointed, I’ll certainly check out her next book.
Respectfully submitted,
Reviewed by guest reviewer Moyra Tarling, July 2020.
Buried Under Books 