Just Between Us – Adele Parks

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Adele Parks is another author I used to always read years ago and decided to get reacquainted settled on Just Between Us.  It turns out that it was the perfect book to start my reunion with her.

Annnnd I couldn’t put it down!  At first, I must admit, the myriad of characters took its toll on my menopausal brain and I found myself, flicking back and forth, trying to remember who was who, but once I was in the swing of the names, I was hooked.

Just between Us tells the story of the disappearance and presumed murder of the FMC, Kylie.  It’s so hard to give a good synopsis without giving too much away but suffice to say (because it does mention it in the blurb) that Kylie is a bigamist.  The papers have her story and the scandal is splashed all over the front pages.  The he country are as intrigued as they are outraged by the story.  A scandal for sure.

We have Lee, devoted wife to (previously widowed) Mark and his two sons, Oli and Seb.  She loves the boys as if they were her own but there is something she doesn’t know.  Oli, the elder of the two, had seen her with another man (husband number 2) but didn’t confront them; instead, choosing to bottle it up and be angry with her.

Ky also has Dutch husband Dan and they live a rich, beautiful life full of only the most expensive of luxuries. 

In the middle of our main story is another.  A story of a love that also ended in tragedy.  This story is easy to figure out, as it’s not that complex but as in life, things are never quite as simple as they might first appear.

DC Clements (and her trusty second in command, Tanner) are leading the investigation into finding Kylie, or at least, what happened to her.

Like in true life murder cases, the first suspect is always the spouse and in this particular case that means that BOTH of her husbands start off in the frame.  Mark and Dan are polar opposites; is it possible that Kylie really did love them both?

And we know that Ky(Lee) committed bigamy prior to going missing (presumed dead) but was it bad enough to be murdered for? And did somebody who knew the truth of her duplicitous life, become her judge, jury and executioner?