Everybody is hiding something, is kind of the premise of this book.
3 seemingly normal British couples meet on holiday in Siesta Key Florida, and as often happens kind of bond because of their shared home.
They make the usual polite promise to stay in touch.
The day before they all depart, a woman from Georgia, who is also staying at the resort with her daughter, becomes panicked when the daughter goes missing.
Back in England is when most of the story is told, and the 3 seemingly normal couples do reluctantly stay in touch, and as the reader gets to know them and they get to know each other, it is revealed they all have various aspects or traits about them that they hide. Making all of them prime candidates for being responsible for the missing girl.
The story is well told, and there is not really any part of it that wasn't believable. ( )

Throughout this novel I had been thinking that it is the only one of what now must be around twenty written by Mark Billingham that I have read that doesn’t feature Detective inspector Tom Thorne. However, he did then make a very fleeting and peripheral appearance.

The book is, however, significantly different from most of Billingham’s other works, although it displays their the high quality and gripping nature. The story starts in Florida, with three British couples meeting at a resort while on their respective holidays. Finding that thay all liuve relatively close to each other in the hinterland of south London, they form a group and find themselves spending much of the vacation together. They have a great time, with the only slight fly in the ointment being the disappearance on their last day of a young girl who had been staying near the resort, and whom they had encountered briefly during their stay. Search parties are formed but no trace of her has been found by the time the six Brits depart,

Back in home and away from the idyllic resort lifestyle, the daily routine seems a little dull, and one couple decides to invite the other four around for dinner, to recapture some of the holiday glow. They have a pleasant enough evening, until conversation turns to the missing girl, which understandably casts a pall over the evening. Still, they agree to meet up again soon. And then another girl goes missing back in Britain.

As always, Billingham builds the tension deftly, and it soon becomes evident that each of the six people has something to hide, and that none of them had been entirely honest in the stories they offered to the Florida Police when the first girl had gone missing. The narrative switches focus between each of the six of them, all of whom have areas of their life that they wish to keep hidden from the wider world, and some even from their partners. The denouement is carefully managed, and Billingham keeps the suspense tight right up to the closing pages. ( )

Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham is a captivating mystery about a teenager who goes missing on vacation and the three couples who "knew" her. Upon their return home, the couples resume their vacation friendship and eventually begin discussing the girl's disappearance. When local police begin questioning them and another teenage girl goes missing, suspicions begin to arise that one of the six is responsible.

British couples, Angie and Barry Finnegan, Sue and Ed Dunning, and Marina Green and Dave Cullen are all staying at the same resort while on holiday in Sarasota, FL. They strike up a vacation friendship and they enjoy hanging out together around the pool and dining with each other at local restaurants. On their last night in town, their idyllic vacation is marred by the disappearance of a fellow vacationer's fourteen year old daughter. Not letting the unfortunate incident ruin their last night in town, the couples exchange e-mail addresses and promise to keep in touch once they are back in the UK. Back home, Angie arranges the first of three increasingly tense dinner parties. Not long after each of the couples are re-interviewed by Detective Constable Jenny Quinlan, another young girl goes missing in the local area. Certain the same person is responsible for both the kidnappings, FL detective Jeff Gardner liaises with British detectives in hopes of catching the kidnapper/killer.

On the surface, each of the couples appears to be quite happy with their lives and relationships. However, once they return to their normal lives, they begin to see the cracks beneath the surface. Angie is a stay at home mom with plenty of time on her hands while her contractor husband Barry flies off the handle both at home and at work. Sue and Ed are long married but Ed has a wandering eye and he is not exactly being truthful about what he does while traveling for his work. Dave Cullen and Marina Green are the only couple who are not married but they seem to have a secure relationship even if they do appear to be a little mismatched. Marina is a beautiful woman who works part-time while she pursues her acting career whereas Dave somewhat of a computer geek.

DC Quinlan's interviews with the couples reveal what the reader already knows: not everyone was honest when they were questioned by the police in FL. Some of these untruths were lies by omission while others were not so innocent efforts to conceal information. Unable to provide solid information about some of their movements on the afternoon the teenager went missing, Detective Gardner digs a little deeper and uncovers some very surprising information. Closer to home, DC Quinlan doggedly continues looking into each of the vacationers' backgrounds and what she discovers definitely warrants further investigation.

Rush of Blood is a slow building whodunit where Mark Billingham provides very intimate peeks into the private lives of three British couples who meet by happenstance while vacationing in the US. When they return to their everyday lives, they begin to notice one another's imperfections but does this mean one of them is a murderer? The truth about who is responsible for the kidnappings emerges at one of the diner parties but there are still plenty of unexpected twists and turns ahead as the novel comes to a very shocking conclusion. Another brilliant mystery that I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend to fans of the genre.
( )

3 couples: Angie and Barry, Sue and Ed, Marina and Dave, meet at a Florida resort, and on their last day at the hotel the intellectually challenged daughter of another holiday maker goes missing. The three British couples are questioned about their whereabouts at the time the girl went missing, and nothing seems suspicious and they are allowed to fly home.

The structure of the book is interesting: emails arranging dinner parties once they are home, chapters exploring how each couple happened to take that holiday along with other details of their marriages, interspersed with the occasional chapter in the voice of the murderer.

At their first meeting back in London the conversation inevitably turns to whether the missing girl in Florida has been found. Back in Florida We are introduced to Detective Jeffrey Gardner, in charge of the investigation. Six weeks after she disappeared the body of the young girl is found, and in London the Lewisham CID room gets a request from the Florida detective for follow up interviews of the British tourists. The task is handed to Trainee Detective Constable Jenny Quinlan who is determined to make her mark. And then a second girl goes missing, but this time in Jenny's territory.

This was a really well plotted story. It had me asking who the murderer was- trying to identify him or her from those very short chapters that kept popping up.

As it turned I was very nearly right, but the author inserted a couple of real twists at the end. ( )

Everybody is hiding something, is kind of the premise of this book.
3 seemingly normal British couples meet on holiday in Siesta Key Florida, and as often happens kind of bond because of their shared home.
They make the usual polite promise to stay in touch.
The day before they all depart, a woman from Georgia, who is also staying at the resort with her daughter, becomes panicked when the daughter goes missing.
Back in England is when most of the story is told, and the 3 seemingly normal couples do reluctantly stay in touch, and as the reader gets to know them and they get to know each other, it is revealed they all have various aspects or traits about them that they hide. Making all of them prime candidates for being responsible for the missing girl.
The story is well told, and there is not really any part of it that wasn't believable. ( )