Book Review: 56 DAYS by Catherine Ryan Howard

 

Title: 56 DAYS

Author:  Catherine Ryan Howard

Read: August 2021

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

 

Book Description:

 

No one knew they'd moved in together. Now one of them is dead. Could this be the perfect murder?

56 DAYS AGO

Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin the same week Covid-19 reaches Irish shores.

35 DAYS AGO

When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests that Ciara move in with him. She sees a unique opportunity for a new relationship to flourish without the pressure of scrutiny of family and friends. He sees it as an opportunity to hide who - and what - he really is.

TODAY

Detectives arrive at Oliver's apartment to discover a decomposing body inside.

Will they be able to determine what really happened, or has lockdown provided someone with the opportunity to commit the perfect crime?

What attracted me to this book:

 

Ever since reading and loving Catherine Ryan Howard’s earlier novel DISTRESS SIGNALS, I have been looking forward to being entertained by her clever, original thrillers that always manage to blindside me. I look for her books when I feel like something that stands out from the fray of mysteries on the market because there is nothing ordinary or formulaic about any of her novels. After covid changed our lives, I have often wondered how writers would deal with this part in our history. Would all books be forever be set in 2019 until the pandemic is over? Would writers dare to look into the future and try to predict what life will be in a year or two? Trust Howard to use the lockdown as a claustrophobic setting for her intriguing story. For a closed-door mystery the setting doesn’t get any better than this!

My musings:

 

Ciara and Oliver meet at the supermarket check-out just as the first cases of covid are making an appearance in other parts of the world. A coffee turns into a dinner and a string of dates. What do you do when a global pandemic threatens a budding romance? When Oliver suggests to Ciara that she move in with him to sit out the imposed two-week lockdown, she agrees, even though the couple don’t know much about one another. But being confined to a small space with a virtual stranger makes it very tricky to keep your deep, dark secrets hidden ...

 

Now one of them is dead and the police have been called by a neighbour who noticed an unpleasant smell coming from the apartment. DI Leah Riordan and DS Karl Connoly are the lucky detectives tasked with working out what has happened here, and who the victim is. Accident or murder? Truth or lies? Read on to find out!

 

In typical Catherine Ryan Howard style, the timeline in this book is not linear, so we gradually find out the full truth through three separate POVs and multiple jumps through time, from 56 days ago (when Ciara and Oliver first met) to the present, with a few other twists thrown in along the way. If you think that this may be confusing, don’t  worry, because the author has planned this so cleverly that there is never any doubt as to what is happening when and to whom. There is that wonderful “aha!” moment some time before the final reveal when things take an unexpected turn, but I dare you to predict the full truth!

 

I loved reading about lockdown in other parts of the world. This was such a frightening time for most of us, when no one really knew how this would all play out, and cities turned into ghost towns overnight. Many of Ciara’s and Oliver’s first responses to the pandemic mirrored my own confusion and fear, and it was fascinating to try and put myself in their shoes. Would my younger self have agreed to stay with a virtual stranger to keep the budding relationship going? Would I have kept this fact a secret from my family for fear of their disapproval? Yes, probably. This is what I love about this author, her characters are so relatable!

  

Summary:

 

All in all, 56 DAYS was another brilliant mystery from an author who has swiftly risen to my favourites list. Whilst set in the early days of the pandemic, the story is not a novel about the pandemic, but the lockdown provided a perfect claustrophobic backdrop to the mystery. Personally, I loved the way certain scenes are explored through the different POVs of each character, allowing us to spot the differences and wondering who is telling the truth, and who is hiding something. This was a tense, claustrophobic read for me and one I could not put down. I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to reading more from this author in future.