The Other Half
You know how they live. This is how they die. 'The Bullingdon Club meets Knives Out' Evening Standard
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
'One of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction.' ERIN KELLY
'A fresh, bitingly witty take on the whodunnit.' RED
The night before
Rupert's 30th is a black tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald's - catered with cocaine and Veuve Clicquot.
The morning after
His girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath. All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally.
This investigation is going to take Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp down a rabbit hole of Classics degrees and aristocrats, Instagram influencers and who knows who. Or is it whom? Caius isn't sure -- can he pin any of them down long enough to see how the other half live, before anyone else dies?
'Brilliantly compulsive . . . I could not stop reading this book.' DENISE MINA
'Sharply witty . . . an enticing blend of frothy social satire and deadly serious detective work.'Daily Mail
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐A perfectly horrid cast of over the top characters and an engaging detective. Glorious.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Such a fun, biting take on the thriller genre . . . I loved this book!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Highly recommend if you enjoy Lucy Foley, I raced through this in less than a day!
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The classic fictional detective gets a millennial makeover in this whizzy, witty murder mystery. In the place of ‘70s gruff hardman clichés, we have thirtysomething London copper Caius Beauchamp, who is as well dressed as he is in touch with his feelings, lunches on quinoa salads and always remembers his reusable coffee cup. He’s a delight—less so the cast of assorted over-privileged poshos and feckless would-be masters of the universe he encounters while trying to solve the murder of Instagram influencer, Clemmie, on the day of her awful boyfriend Rupert’s 30th birthday bash. Fans of Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan will enjoy the ‘rich people behaving badly’ vibes; fans of ridiculously impressive debuts will enjoy, well, everything really.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Vassell's crackling debut skewers England's current crop of gilded youth. Rich, handsome Rupert Beauchamp, who's about to inherit a title, throws himself a lavish 30th birthday party in London's buzzy Kentish Town: it's an ironic black-tie affair at the local McDonald's, catered with buckets of champagne and mountains of cocaine. The next morning, while British-Jamaican detective Caius Beauchamp (no relation to Rupert) is out jogging, he happens upon the corpse of Rupert's influencer girlfriend, Clemmie, in Hampstead Heath. Given that all the party attendees have alibis, the obvious suspect is Nell, a beautiful editor at a literary press whom Rupert has long planned to leave Clemmie for. Nell, however, has grown ambivalent about Rupert and his social circle, so Caius pursues other leads as well. His search takes him through a web of overprivileged suspects on whom the detective casts a half-contemptuous, half-envious eye, and eventually delivers him to the doorstep of a murderous, elite conspiracy. Vassell gleefully plunges into the underbelly of 21st-century entitlement, creating vivid sketches of aimless young Londoners gorging on designer clothes and designer drugs—sometimes at the expense of her core mystery. Still, as a diamond-sharp satirical whodunit in the vein of Liane Moriarty, this succeeds.