Halfway by B.E.Jones, Book Review

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Isolated rural places can be creepy, especially in bad weather for some reason. We used to live on the border to Wales and my husband and I still joke about a phrase we heard a lot: ‘You’re not from round ‘ere.’ You can interpret this quote is a number of ways – from friendly, ‘gosh, where are you from?’, to a more sinister –‘ you shouldn’t be here!’.

Well, I’d happily give this particular setting in an isolated spot in Western Wales a miss, because sinister is an understatement. It’s three days before Christmas and a local bus gets caught up in bad weather and leaves travellers (not that there’s that many) stranded. It’s not hard to see where this beginning can take a crime writer, but I don’t think you could ever imagine the twists and depths of nastiness the author B.E. Jones takes you to in Halfway. At least for your sake, I hope that some of it will come as a shock.

Most books centre on a protagonist who is appealing in some way if not outright likeable. We enjoy identifying with someone and will them to survive and succeed. This book won’t give you that kind of character, at least I didn’t find any of the main protagonists the sort of people I would cheer on. However, this makes the plot even more intriguing. And one thing I do know now, is that when my mother said, ‘never give a hitch hiker a ride’, it was good advice.

If you like well-written psychological thrillers with a complex plot (eased by the fact that the whole story plays out in less than 24 hours) and intriguing characters and you don’t shy away from some gore and bad language, then this is the book for you.

B.E.Jones is a former journalist and police press officer. I suppose if you are a crime reporter you will be familiar with some of the more extreme forms of behaviour people will display.

Published by Constable in 2018 in paperback for £8.99.

(Toria Forsyth-Moser)

Available on Amazon