Book info

• Title The Memory Game
• Author Nicci French
• Year 1997
• Genre Thriller

You remember an idyllic childhood. But your memory is deceitful. And possibly deadly... When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos' garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it's that of her childhood friend, Natalie, who went missing twenty-five years before. Jane is encouraged by her therapist to recover what really took place when she was a child - and what happened to Natalie. But as Jane learns the truth about her past, is she putting her own future at terrible risk?

Thoughts

I found this one to be much harder work than previous Nicci French books, and that’s not because the idea wasn’t good but it just felt very drawn out. For a start, the original crime happened over twenty years ago, so we’re already quite removed from the drama. The extended family introduced at the start of the book boggled my mind a little bit, and made it hard to place what exactly was going on.

Then the middle third of the book felt far too long, before we got to what was an interesting and satisfying conclusion. What I do like about Nicci French books is that the main characters are not always twenty or thirty something upstarts trying to make their way in the world. Here we have an older woman, with grown up kids and an entire past behind her, suddenly thrust back into a terrible and haunting situation.

So, overall, some good things to merit it with but not one of my favourites.

Rating: 2 / 5