Title: Kill Your Brother
Author: Jack Heath
Published: November 2021
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Readership: Adult
Genre: Crime & Mystery
Rating: ★★★★.5
RRP: $29.99
Content warnings: Sexual assault of a minor, suicide, murder, blood, kidnapping, self harm, doping
I received a copy of Kill Your Brother from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Would you kill your brother to save yourself?
After months of searching, disgraced athlete Elise Glyk has finally found her missing brother, Callum. He’s being held in a backyard prison by Stephanie Hartnell, a former sheep farmer with an axe to grind. But before she can free Callum or call for help, Elise is captured and locked up alongside him.
Stephanie Hartnell doesn’t have room for two prisoners, and she has nothing against Elise. But she needs to make sure Elise can’t go to the police. So she offers her a deal: kill Callum, and you’re free to go.
Of course, Elise won’t even consider the deal. No way. It’s unthinkable. But she’s running out of time to find another way out. And her brother may not have told her the whole truth …
A twisted roller-coaster of action and suspense from the acclaimed bestselling author of Hangman.
Wow.
Part of me wonders what on earth I just read – but it was gripping from start to finish and honestly unputdownable.
Disgraced former athlete, Elise, is a pariah in her small hometown, and when she goes looking for her missing brother, the town are less than sympathetic to her cause. When she finally locates him where he’s held prisoner on a remote property, she’s taken prisoner alongside him as she tries to decipher the truth from the lies in the stories she’s being told by both Callum and his kidnapper, Stephanie.
This is an absolute roller-coaster of a ride, and full of twists that come at you right as you think you’ve got the whole thing figured out. Jack Heath is fantastic at weaving stories of flawed characters that you’re immediately invested in, while also giving the most sympathetic of characters dark sides.
One thing to note, as you’re reading, is that while the majority of the book is told from Elise’s POV, there are plenty of other POVs that are scattered throughout the book (as well as some from different points in the timeline).
A lot of the things I want to talk about would be considered major spoilers, so the only other thing I’ll mention is that it’s important to be aware of the content warnings for this book (which I’ve listed at the top of the page). If very little phases you, you should be fine, but if you don’t regularly pick up crime/mystery/suspense then it never hurts to be forewarned.
It’s a hell of a ride and I continue to be impressed by Jack Heath’s books.
Noveltea Corner 