The Vacation by T M Logan

This novel got off to a slow start for me. The dialogue and Kate's thoughts anticipate suspense in that she had a foreboding sense about the trip and getting together with her college friends and families. They all get together and, then, nothing for a long time. There is tension and voiced suspicions but it is all quite low key. I like a hook at the beginning and nothing really hooked me.

The inner tension revolves around Kate wondering which of the three women is having an affair with her husband. Logan does a good job of making us suspect each of them. That was a bit overshadowed by the seemingly constant bickering between spouses and between the kids. I would have like more outer tension and suspense as the pace lagged for me, especially in the middle.

I had trouble liking the characters. None of them were engaging. Kate was a bit of a mystery to me. She is a crime scene investigator but is a nervous and unsure woman. That just did not seem to make sense. They all had secrets so the gathering was a really dysfunctional one.

There is finally a murder near the end. I would have preferred a plot where the murder was much earlier, contributing to the suspicious activity of all involved. There were some twists at the end that were good but that really did not make up for the slow pace of the rest of the novel.

You can read an excerpt here.

My rating: 3/5 stars.

T M Logan is the bestselling author of Lies and 29 Seconds. He was born in Berkshire, studied at Queen Mary and Cardiff Universities before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He currently works in communications and lives in Nottingham with his wife and two children. You can find out more at https://www.tmlogan.com/ Photo: Sally Utton

St Martin's Press, 384 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)