The Party House: An Atmospheric and Twisty Thriller Set in the Scottish Highlands

About this book

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Blackrig is still raw from a pandemic it believes was brought in by outsiders. So when a nearby estate announces plans to reopen its luxury party house, the anger is immediate and collective. This is a place that remembers who belongs and who does not, and it has little patience left.

An act of vandalism meant as protest exposes something far worse. Buried beneath the excess of the estate’s hot tub are the remains of Ailsa Cummings, missing for five years and never forgotten. Grief turns quickly to suspicion, settling heavily on the men of the village, including Greg, the estate’s gamekeeper.

As the investigation tightens, Greg’s new partner Joanne begins to question what she truly knows about him, and about the community she has stepped into. The Party House is steeped in tension and moral unease, attentive to how fear reshapes loyalty. In a village where everyone has something to lose, truth is dangerous, silence is protective, and secrets have a way of surfacing when the ground is disturbed.