‘The Vacation’ is a thrilling read about a holiday gone wrong
- 26 Oct 2020
The choice seemed simple enough. Four women, best friends since childhood, want a getaway vacation.
When the richest of them is offered a free week at a client's villa in France, they all jump at the chance to invite their husbands and children to leave muggy England behind for the French beach and countryside.
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One of the women is now a widow, a nagging wound that the group delicately sidesteps.
The men, who know one another only through their wives, get along socially even if they seem to have little in common.
Right off the bat, Libby discovers a text on her husband's phone from an apparent paramour, and she quickly deduces it has to be one of her fellow travellers.
The cheating lovers have texted that they'll "tell her" on the trip. Slowly she builds a case against each of her dear friends.
Each of the couples has complicated kids in tow.
The youngest is spoiled rotten, an only child; another is distant and always plugged into his digital world; a younger brother yearns to play with the older kids.
A lovely teen daughter is clearly troubled about something ... a boy? Much adolescent drama, and, later, danger, ensues.
Along the way we learn all these characters' back stories and fill in the blanks around their bizarre behaviour on the trip.
But the author doesn't prepare us for the final tragic twist, even though the puzzle pieces were there all along.
Tribune News Service
