Stevie‘s review of The Pact by Sharon Bolton
Contemporary Psychological Thriller published by Trapeze 01 May 21
I’m a long-time fan of Sharon Bolton’s twisty thrillers (and the author herself seems pretty cool too), so I was very excited to see the blurb for this new novel pop up in my emails. The fact that it’s set in and around Oxford, a city I’ve been missing a lot in these times of not travelling much, was a further incentive, as was the premise of the story itself. Six teenagers from an exclusive and highly academic private school are enjoying their last summer together in the months between finishing their ‘A’ Levels and going off to separate universities, spending most of the time at the home of one of them, while her parents are mostly absent. After one of them leads them in a dangerous, drunken dare and gets away with it, the others take it in terms to emulate the stunt until only one remains to try it. This last stunt, however, results in tragedy, and three strangers – a woman and her two young children – die. The group agree that although any one of them could have caused the same sequence of events, there’s no point in all of them taking the blame. At this point, Megan – the scholarship kid – volunteers to absolve the others of all responsibility, provided that each of the other five agrees to do something for her at a later date. The rest of the group agree to Megan’s suggestion and sign a pact with her, but none of them realise just what they’re letting themselves in for.
None of the six expects Megan to serve more than a few years in prison, but she ends up there for the whole of a twenty-year term. On her release, she seeks out her five former friends, who have kept in touch with each other, but made no attempt to contact her in all that time, and reminds them of their promise to her. The others haven’t completely forgotten about her. All are successful in their own way and all have been paying into a trust fund that was intended to help Megan when she began a new life outside prison. However, they find themselves resenting her intrusion and decide not to tell her about the money straight away or to agree to her demands.
But only Megan knows where the document they all signed is hidden, and they all remember that she also photographed it and took the camera’s film with her. And so a search begins – or restarts, since two of the group had tried to find the document and film twenty years earlier – alongside attempts to discover how Megan can be appeased least painlessly and why she was so willing to take the blame in the first place.
This really was a twisty book. None of the characters were particularly likeable, but I was irresistibly drawn to them and to the various mysteries around what really happened on that fateful night following the accident and which of the six is willing to kill in order to prevent the truth about the accident and its aftermath ever being revealed to the wider world. Definitely one of my favourite books from this author.
Grade: A
Summary:
A golden summer, and six talented friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures – until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, and a woman and two children are killed.
18-year-old Megan takes the blame, leaving the others free to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a ‘favour’, payable on her release from prison.
Twenty years later Megan is free.
Let the games begin…
Read an excerpt.
