Murder Grove

by E. V. Adamson

Overview

Death seems to follow her: two murders, three decades apart…

In 1990, within the deceptively peaceful woods of her Sussex neighborhood, Mia witnesses the brutal murder of her mother and wakes up in a shallow grave. A man confesses to the murder and later dies in prison, but Mia never comes to terms with her mother’s death.

After another brush with tragedy in 2021, Mia and her boyfriend Rich move from London to a small Spanish village where they can begin a new life. At first, Val Verde seems to be everything they could wish for. But when a body is found in the olive grove outside of town, they realize that their would-be safe haven harbors a terrible secret. Will they discover the deadly root of evil before it’s too late?

Breathlessly paced with an atmospheric setting, Murder Grove is a twisty psychological thriller from the author of Five Strangers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613163733
Publisher:	Penzler Publishers
Publication date:	01/24/2023
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	1,067,840
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

E. V. Adamson is a pseudonym of award-winning journalist and author Andrew Wilson. He is the author of four acclaimed biographies, including one on Patricia Highsmith, and four Agatha Christie novels, which feature the Queen of Crime as a series sleuth.

Editorial Reviews

11/07/2022

In the prologue of this gripping if flawed psychological thriller from the pseudonymous Adamson (Five Strangers), a fresh body, an apparent murder victim, turns up in an olive grove outside Val Verde, Spain, the new home of the novel’s two unreliable narrators, Mia Banner and Rich Ellis. Six months earlier, Mia and Rich, romantic partners since their university days, decided to pack in their jobs in London and move into the house that Rich’s eccentric actor mother left to him in Val Verde. The corpse’s discovery sends Mia and Rich’s lives spiraling in unexpected directions. Their dueling narratives tease at problems within the relationship and disturbing experiences in both their pasts, leading each of them to question just how many lies they’re telling themselves as well as how many lies they’re telling each other. The corpse is identified only late in the book, and most of the action and the murder’s resolution unfold toward its end, by which time some readers, tired of all the psychobabble, will no longer care about the fates of these two emotionally damaged people. Hopefully, Adamson will do better next time. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aiken Alexander Assoc. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"E.V. Adamson, aka Andrew Wilson, a biographer of Patricia Highsmith, shares her ruthless cynicism and clear-eyed view of human nature. . . . As in his novels that feature a sleuthing Agatha Christie, there is a strong sense that Wilson writes with his tongue in his cheek. This adds depth and pleasure to a heady tale of distrust and disillusion."

The best new crime fiction for August 2022 - The Times - Mark Sanderson

"Told alternately between the two badly damaged characters’ points of view, this second psychological thriller from Adamson … is rife with distrust and disillusionment, with an ending that will surprise even astute readers and chill them to the bone."

Booklist

"The pace was relentless and the ending left so many intriguing questions!"

Jane Shemilt

"E.V. Adamson is a star."

Hank Phillippi Ryan

★ 2022-11-16
How many ways can a romantic triangle turn murderous? Let Adamson count, and multiply, the ways.

Mia Banner has left her teaching job in London to follow her longtime boyfriend, Richard Ellis, to the Andalusian village of Val Verde to live in La Casa de la Luz, the house his worthless mother left him in her will. She anticipates some difficulties settling into a neighborhood whose principal attraction is the volunteer organization Desert Shoots, but there’s no way she could have known that Anna Fleming, the photojournalist she meets at an informal gathering, has already had a brief, lusty fling with Rich and plans to continue it under Mia’s unsuspecting eyes. Assigning alternate chapters to Mia and Rich, Adamson details Rich’s empty relationship with Marianne Ellis, the mother who neglected him to embrace the bottle until she drank herself to death, and hints ever more broadly at the traumatic crime in Mia’s childhood from whose shadow she’s struggled to emerge ever since. Rich assures Anna that he’s going to leave Mia for her; when Mia discovers the affair, he assures her that he’s going to send Anna away. Since each of the three leads has ample reason to kill each of the other two, the moment when Adamson finally reveals the identity of the corpse discovered in the opening chapter bids fair to diminish the rising tension. Miraculously, however, the author keeps coming up with new ways to ratchet up the suspense even further until the last line of the last chapter.

A claustrophobic, breathlessly effective tale that seems to pave the way for a choose-your-own-murder series.

Kirkus Reviews

06/10/2024

Adamson (Five Strangers), a pseudonym for award-winning journalist and biographer Andrew Wilson, offers a gripping psychological thriller featuring two deeply flawed unreliable narrators. Mia and Rich leave overcrowded London to live off the grid in a Spanish eco-village. The move to Spain was supposed to be serene, but the house, La Casa de la Luz, and the surrounding land have a murky and troubling history. So do Mia and Rich, both of whom are traumatized by familial relationships and unhealthy behaviors. Their peaceful idyll is destroyed when a body is found just outside of town—listeners will spend the first half of the book trying to guess whose body it is and the second half trying to discover the murderer's identity. Narrators Shazia Nicholls and Jot Davies alternate telling the story from each character's point of view. Their British and Spanish accents add texture, and their skillful pacing will keep listeners enthralled. VERDICT Share with listeners who enjoy twisty mysteries where nothing is as it seems. The frantic, terrifying ending leaves a mark.—Laura Trombley

Library Journal - Audio