When Matthew Cosgrave and a number of fellow-students at Blackport University were acquitted of a terrible crime, he felt that he could put his past behind him and look ahead to the future. Twenty years later he has done just that. Married with a loving home, his only grief is the tragic death of his young daughter. But then his best friend from college days is killed in a drowning accident. Matthew returns to Blackport for a reunion in the hope of finding out what has become of the others who stood trial with them and soon comes to realise that the past is not so easily shaken off...
Her first two novels, Tread Softly and Without Consent, firmly established Georgie Hale as an exciting writer who could carry her readers along at a cracking pace, leaving them dangling until the last possible moment before revealing the truth.
She's managed the hat trick with Better Than Death, another powerful novel which constantly overturns expectations to leave the reader in a state of shock by the end - surely a good indicator of a successful crime novel.
Matthew Cosgrave and his wife Elizabeth believe they have eventually come to terms with the death of their daughter Daisy. They have moved away, built up a new life for themselves and are actually daring to hope that they can be happy again. But then Spike Vardon, Matthew's best friend from university, is killed in a drowning accident - an accident which throws up more questions than it answers.
A mysterious letter arrives which hints at events far back in Matthew's past - events which he thought had been dealt with 25 years earlier. But it appears that the past is not going to let him go - what happened on the night of his 21st birthday celebrations will come back to haunt him. Matthew was not the only one to stand trial accused of rape - like his friends he was found innocent and freed to begin a new life.
But when he begins to track down his college friends from that dreadful time, he finds that they have had their own share of bad luck, as well as their own threatening letters. Teaming up with Spike's fiancee, Jane, Matthew is determined to find out who is behind the letters, and if necessary, pay them off. But as events move towards a horrifying climax and Matthew sees all he holds most dear slipping away from him, he realizes that revenge, not money, is the ultimate objective - and he is finally forced to confront the truth.
This is a gripping novel, fast paced, superbly plotted and utterly plausible. Hale brilliantly portrays the gradual decline of one man's world, as the truth comes hurtling in through the cracks in his apparently secure facade. She rams home the message that nothing and no one can be taken for granted - however deeply buried, the horrors of the past are always ready to trip up the unwary. (Kirkus UK)
