EYES OF GLASS by Gemma Metcalfe & Joe Cawley

EYES OF GLASS

Gemma Metcalfe & Joe Cawley (hesaysshesays.net)

Spellbound Books (spellboundbooks.co.uk)

£0.99

Lyra is trying to find the follow-up to her bestselling debut novel, and trying to come to terms with the fact that she’s just found her boyfriend in her bed with another woman, when she discovers a message in a bottle on a Galway beach. Intrigued, she opens the bottle and finds that the message has survived and Atlantic crossing: it’s a poem – a fairly sombre poem – with a name and a phone number. Lyra calls the number – it will be nice to tell this Dee that her bottle reached the shores of Ireland – and finds herself talking to 15-year-old Chloe Warren, Dee’s daughter. Dee, it turns out, committed suicide shortly after the date on the note Lyra has found, shedding a whole different light on the tone of the message in the bottle. Lyra accepts an invitation to visit with Chloe and her family in Chappaquiddick on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachussetts and soon finds herself embroiled in a mystery involving the members of this dysfunctional family, and the people who work for them. Did Dee really commit suicide and, if not, who killed her, and why? Everyone is keeping secrets, everyone seems to have a motive and coming to America may have been the biggest mistake Lyra has ever made.

The premise of Gemma Metcalfe and Joe Cawley’s latest collaboration is, as you can see, a fairly simple one, but from those simple beginnings springs a hugely complex page-turner that never lets up. It’s immediately apparent, as Lyra arrives at the Warrens’ house, that all is not as it seems. 15-year-old Chloe now lives with her stepfather and older stepbrother and it’s clear that Dee has married into money, as Bill Warren seems to have fingers in every pie imaginable. Bill is cold and, at times, very sinister. Jackson, his son, seems to have a dark side all of his own, and Lyra immediately senses that the story of Dee’s death doesn’t quite add up. Here, she feels, are two prime suspects, if she can just get to the bottom of their motives. Chloe herself is something of a handful, prone to wild moodswings and with no concept of boundaries. The only reasonably sane person in the house is the housekeeper, Marie, who has been harbouring suspicions of her own, following the disappearance of a friend – very close behind the death of the lady of the house – who used to work for the Warrens herself.

While the majority of the story is told in the first person from Lyra’s point of view, Metcalfe and Cawley pepper the narrative with chapters from the point of view of the other characters. For the most part these are designed to provide us with information that Lyra couldn’t possibly have, but the authors keep careful control of just how much they reveal: many of these chapters raise more questions about the current central character than they answer, often contradicting facts that we thought had been squared away, and constantly keeping us on our toes. The chapters are short and sharp, and the story is so full of twists that you have to wonder if it’s not just a little bit too over the top at times. The book is, in a word, bonkers, and you’ll come away with whiplash as twist after twist comes hurtling out of the blue.

With the exception of Lyra, it’s difficult to like the characters and Metcalfe and Cawley have been clever in keeping us at arm’s length, giving us enough to distrust the people, then reeling us in with some redeeming feature before pulling the rug from under our feet again. They never give us time to get comfortable, to get a feel for the shape of the mystery at the heart of Eyes of Glass, or to try and formulate a theory that will satisfy all of the facts. You should know before going in that, while a satisfactory solution does exist, there’s no point trying to second guess what it might be; it’s best in this instance to sit back, relax, and enjoy the rollercoaster ride.

Eyes of Glass is a fine example of the genre it represents: it’s a fast-paced, action-packed domestic thriller that will keep you entertained for the duration, but doesn’t, unfortunately, have much to set it apart from the thousands of other novels of the same kind clamouring for shelf-space. It’s perfect for a long flight, or a week at the beach, the type of thriller that demands very little of the reader, but which is sometimes just what we need. Think James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels, and you’ll have some idea of what to expect from Metcalfe and Cawley’s latest outing. It might make you think twice about picking up that bottle on the beach, the one with the piece of paper inside. Beyond that, it’s fairly forgettable, but enjoyable and entertaining fare.