Book Review: A Double Life

Author: Flynn Berry

Publication Date: July 31, 2018

Publisher: Viking

“A thrilling page-turner.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

“Breathtaking . . . As shocking as it is satisfying.” —The New York Times Book Review

A gripping, intense, stunningly written novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Under the Harrow

Claire is a hardworking doctor leading a simple, quiet life in London. She is also the daughter of the most notorious murder suspect in the country, though no one knows it. 

Nearly thirty years ago, while Claire and her brother slept upstairs, a brutal crime was committed in her family's townhouse. The next morning, her father's car was found abandoned near the English Channel, with bloodstains on the front seat. Her mother insisted she'd seen him in the house that night, but his powerful, privileged friends maintained his innocence. The first lord accused of murder in more than a century, he has been missing ever since. 

When the police tell Claire they've found him, her carefully calibrated existence begins to fracture. She doesn't know if she's the daughter of a murderer or a wronged man, but Claire will soon learn how far she'll go to finally find the truth.

Loosely inspired by one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the 20th century – the Lord Lucan case – A Double Life is at once a riveting page-turner and a moving reflection on women and violence, trauma and memory, and class and privilege.

The first thing that gripped me about Berry’s new novel was the fact that this story is based on a true crime. This story is loosely based on the Lord Lucan case of the 20^thcentury, which I turn had to research. Berry’s writing is very suspenseful and will keep you turning pages, which is one of the most important factors for me in reading thrillers. Another important part of Berry’s writing that I very much enjoyed were the flashbacks from present day that helped fill in the plot and background. I love a good background story – Berry truly helped set the stage, fill you with suspense, and develop her characters this way. I loved Claire and finding out, slowly and quite mysteriously about her dad - best part of the story!

A man comes around the bend in the path. I stop short when he appears. The heath has been quiet today, under dark snow clouds, and we’re alone on a path where the oak trees form a tunnel.

It starts to snow. Only lightly, but enough to being to turn the fields and paths white. I keep walking as snow drifts over the trees, any my face feels tight and clean in the cold. I start to think about what I will say to him.

Or, they said Mum wasn’t confused, she was lying, and had staged the attack to frame my father. They were about to begin divorce proceedings, she might have lost the house, custody, access to his money. “She wasn’t stable,” said James, in an interview with the Telegraph. “You have to understand that. None of us ever knew why he was with her.”

I love how Flynn Berry builds a character with so much soul- in this case Claire, whose father killed her Nanny, attempted to kill her Mother then disappeared seemingly into thin air. I loved Berry’s choice to write this novel from the perspective of the suspect’s daughter, Claire. Most of us want to know more about the suspect in a crime, but we don’t often stop to think about the family of the suspect and what they must feel during a time like that – this novel was suspenseful, thrilling, and threw in a few twists that I did not see coming!

***A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Viking Books in exchange for my honest review***