My Best Friend's Murder is the debut novel by Australian author Polly Phillips.
Bec and Izzy are best friends but at the beginning of the book, Izzy's body is found at the bottom of the stairs in her house and Bec knows she's going to be considered the prime suspect.
Set in London, the book then takes us back to a time before the incident and we become acquainted with Bec and Izzy's close circle of family and friends as well as their home and work situations. With the title telling us to expect a murder, an accident seems unlikely so the book becomes a 'whodunnit' of sorts.
Both Bec and Izzy are vain, materialistic and unlikeable characters. Their friendship - if you could call it that - is toxic and unhealthy but they find themselves unable to move on in this unfolding domestic drama.
"Looking at Izzy is like looking through a kaleidoscope. Fragments of my childhood whirl around us. Her teaching me to smoke at a bus-stop when we were fourteen. The night she held my hair back when I vomited all over her parent's kitchen. The moment we laughed so hard during a Friends marathon that I snorted Diet Coke over the sofa. Her hair might be glossier and her face thinner but she's still the one I called the moment I lost my virginity. The guy had barely left the room before I picked up the phone. Then there's how she held me up after my mum died. We've got so much history that sometimes I wonder where Izzy stops and I begin." Page 130I always have a couple of books on the go at the same time, however being in the middle of reading The Swap by Robyn Harding (a Simon & Schuster title from last year) probably impacted my reading enjoyment of My Best Friend's Murder. The unhealthy relationship between the women in both of these books made me want to shake all of the characters by the shoulders and yell 'Get a grip, she's not worth it!'
Don't you hate it when characters don't behave the way you want them to? Bec did two things in this book that made me want to scream!
I'm not convinced My Best Friend's Murder has enough tension or suspense to be called a thriller. I was mildly surprised by the 'whodunnit' reveal, but too annoyed with one of the characters to be swept away by the revelation. My Best Friend's Murder is very readable domestic noir and a contemporary story about friendship, jealousy and envy. Friends or frenemies? You be the judge.
I'm not convinced My Best Friend's Murder has enough tension or suspense to be called a thriller. I was mildly surprised by the 'whodunnit' reveal, but too annoyed with one of the characters to be swept away by the revelation. My Best Friend's Murder is very readable domestic noir and a contemporary story about friendship, jealousy and envy. Friends or frenemies? You be the judge.
