The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

 

Easiest five star review I've written in a while. Has the same fun vibes as a murder mystery show, like My Life Is Murder or Midsomer Murders, but plunges into the toxic and half-rotten corruption of the British upper-class like THE SECRET HISTORY. At times, I definitely got almost-Donna Tartt vibes from this book.

Caius Beauchamp is a half-Jamaican millennial detective who just got dumped by his hot French girlfriend. In the middle of yass-ifying himself post breakup, with skincare routines and bread making, he gets put on a case for a society princess-cum-influencer who was found dead in a park, wearing a flower crown. Actually, he's the one who found her. While jogging as part of his self-improvement regimen.

As he looks into the dead woman's circle of friends, who is named Clemmie btw, Caius learns about a birthday party at McDonalds with top-shelf champagne and cocaine, an art gallery that doesn't actually seem to move much art, and a beautiful and slightly pathetic sociopath named Rupert, who was dating Clemmie but had eyes for a manic pixie dreamgirl of a woman named Nell.

Nothing in this book is as it seems and even fifty pages from the end, I wasn't totally sure what was going on. I'm surprised that the ratings for this book are so mixed because I thought it was fantastic. I am so glad that it's the first in a series because I didn't really want to let any of these characters go, even when I'd finished the book.

5 out of 5 stars