Nicholas Searle

"We die of old age from the inside out, rotting gradually as we get older."

Roy, an octogenarian con man is looking to make one final coup. He meets septuagenarian Betty through a dating app and intends to defraud her of he life savings. But is Betty as naïve as she seems?

It is hard to say too much about this book without giving the ending away. Enough to say that the book follows Roy’s attempt to con Betty interspersed with time shifts to his eventful and somewhat nefarious past.

In some respects this a hard book to review. Roy's past is revealed bit by bit in reverse so each turn is fairly well signposted before hand yet I also really engaged with some parts of it. I quite liked the basic idea, some of the techniques used and I liked the ending even if I had worked out many aspects of it beforehand. However, I was expecting something like a Tom Ripley character, charming but ruthless, but frankly Roy just wasn't that likeable and lacked any real menace.

Ultimately I found this an engaging but flawed novel. In the end felt that it read rather more like Tessa de Loo's 'Twins' than Ms Highsmith's renowned novel. However I would still read another book by this author. Now I'm off to see the movie.… (mere)