Today I’m joining the blog tour for Dead Heat. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Former journalist Matt Grimshaw’s life is at a low ebb. He’s been ‘let go’ by the paper where he’s worked for years, and his relationship with his long-term girlfriend has come unstuck. So when an invitation arrives from his two closest friends, Celia and Adam Murphy, to join them at their house in Greece, he jumps at it. It may be harsh and unwelcoming on the Mani Peninsula but Matt determines to stay there for the whole summer and to write his much put-off screen-play. But then the Murphys plus children arrive, and a wealthy newcomer to the area starts throwing loud and lavish parties in his big house across the bay. As the nights become hotter and the parties wilder, everyone’s motivations darken. Envy rises, resentments grow – until a terrible accident stops the summer in its tracks. At least, it looks like an accident… Set over one blazing Mediterranean summer, Sabine Durrant’s new thriller is tense, claustrophobic and utterly gripping.

Review:

Dead Heat is the first book I’ve ever read by Sabine Durrant but it won’t be the last. She’s a wonderfully talented writer who creates a brilliantly tense atmosphere which crackles under the surface throughout the whole novel and made me want to keep reading to get to the bottom of the story.

This novel is something of a slow burn, but the slower pace enables Sabine Durrant to deep dive into the lives of the characters and Deep Heat is richer for this. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likeable, but their relationships with each other and their intriguing background stories make the story really compelling.

As the plot comes to a head, the tension which has been bubbling from the beginning builds to a palpable level. I was fascinated by the direction in which the author took the story and I really wanted to know what had happened. I loved the ending and I am left thinking about Dead Heat long after I finished.

I will be going back through the author’s back catalogue to discover what I’ve missed!

Dead Heat is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: