The Split by S.E. Lynes

I’ve been reading a number of thrillers and crime stories over the summer as well as some older ‘classics.’ So, quite a lot of reviews coming your way I’m afraid!

I hadn’t read anything by S.E. Lynes previously but was quickly involved with the plot and main characters. Will is a life coach, aiming to help put others’ lives back on track, while Jessica is a ‘career mother’ who relies on Will to keep everything up and running at home and, in particular, looking after their two young children.

An incident involving Will throws this arrangement up in the air and the pieces that come back to earth form a quite different structure to all their lives. A crack in their married relationship becomes a fissure and even as we will (!) them to try harder to fill the alarming gaps that quickly form, so the rift appears likely to become increasingly permanent.
There are, of course, two sides to any story such as this and we read into it what Will and Jessica independently believe is going on. As we gain more information from such insights, so the communications between the two of them become less and less effective, as sadness turns to anger and resolution.

Into this poisonous mix, and their mixed-up worlds, a new and entirely different character appears – apparently from a chance meeting in a pub. Ian Robbins is the kind of man who holds Will’s (and our) attention from the moment he strides on to the page. His is almost an exotic, parallel universe through which Will tries to make sense of what is happening to his marriage. However, although the lens of distance and objectivity may magnify certain aspects – bring them into relief – it might simultaneously be too narrow for him to see the much bigger picture.

After a pacy introduction, I did find the book a little repetitive throughout the middle section as the author tried to rack up the tension. I guess it’s a fine balance between keeping the suspense engine running and knowing when and how to press the accelerator. I also wasn’t entirely taken in by how the plot developed. However, I’ve read so many books lately where the final sprints have left me feeling well short of the winning post. The quality of the prose here certainly meant that I was always going to finish the race.

As a writer I’m always intrigued by the unexpected ‘what ifs’ as stable relationships in ‘ordinary’ situations face curve balls either of their own making or from left field: how ‘normal’ people handle adversity. I’ve started to explore this in the first three books of my new Inspector Harcourt Mystery series which were published on Amazon this week. I guess we all potentially face a ‘Chesil Beach’ moment in our lives, no matter how safe and secure we might be feeling, and confident in our planning for the long-term. I think that the author really captured the essence of this, even though it was probably less subtle than it could have been, given the rush towards a resolution.

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