Lead Review (The Penthouse)

• Book: The Penthouse
• Location: Las Vegas, London
• Author: Catherine Cooper

Review Author: tripfiction

3.5*

This story is set in the glamorous (and at times cutthroat) world of the music industry. Back in 2008 Enola fronted “Breathe”, a successful girl band. She was dating Max who was and still is a significant member of “This Way Up”. Now, in 2024 the two groups are appearing together in Las Vegas. But Breathe is without Enola, who simply vanished in 2008. The story starts in 2004.

The mystery throughout  the novel is fuelled by her disappearance. The relationship between the couple was fraught at times (he was overtly controlling) and whilst in Paris they were perusing rings for a potential engagement when a petrol tanker rammed into a high end shopping centre (surely an exclusive jeweller in Hatton Garden would have been the venue of choice?), where they were eyeing up the rocks. Subsequently, she could no longer remember much about the event and certainly does not remember saying yes to his engagement proposal. He asserts they were well down the road of potential matrimony.

BUY NOW

There are plenty of characters who have a motive to remove her and indeed, given her fragile self, did she choose to simply walk away or perhaps even take her own life? There are those in this novel who are self serving and vengeful (crikey, Enola’s mother is a piece of work), and others who will wait for the opportunity to cause friction and damage.

This is a story full of glitzy luxury, tempers and tantrums and a cast of pretty unlikeable characters, and as accidents start to occur in Las Vegas, thoughts turn to who might be engineering so much upset among this group of people.

This story has a good level of interest, pace and tension as it works its way to the end. I did, however, struggle with the construct. Given the novel should be ideal for a pool-side read – whereby a reader wants to be easily led through the unfolding story and thoroughly entertained without a great deal of cerebral input – I felt it required an awful lot of effort to keep the story straight. Chapters are generally short and punchy and headed by: 1) date (2008 or 2024, for example), 2) a location and 3) a character. Those three elements proved to be overly taxing as the story busily moved back and forth. For me, it jumped about a bit too much.

If you like glitz and glamour and murky dynamics within the entertainment industry, then this is for you.

SPOILER ALERT

Why, though, in the blurb on Amazon and the publisher’s website, would this book be advertised by the publisher as: “The glamorous new murder mystery suspense thriller, perfect for summer 2025″ – half the tension is whether a murder took place or not… I do despair of the level of lack of care in publishing sometimes, which also in this instance extends to the book cover – the eponymous penthouse of the title is set in London, so the stock photo really isn’t quite on point with its palm trees pictured the the windows (although I suppose they reference Las Vegas).

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