Review: The Three Women

The Three Women by Valerie Keogh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have been reading a number of crime / mystery / suspense novels this year. ‘The storyline of ‘The Three Women’ and the largely favourable reviews made me pick this up. It however fell far short of my expectations.

Beth, Megan and Joanne meet while at the university, quite by chance. They grow to be close during their years in college. They decide to go on a short outstation break for a couple of days before they move on to their careers. An evening at a restaurant & bar ends on a horrifying note. Megan and Joanne cannot find Megan and learn that she had left earlier. As they reach the place they stay, they find Megan there in bad shape and crying. As she tells them what happened, they are horrified and it is an incident which is to shape the rest of their lives.

The story picks up events after nearly 20 years, by when each of them take up different careers, and get into relationships which are difficult to sustain. As she gets engaged, Megan feels constrained now to reveal to her partner on all that happened that evening many years back, which she has told no-one till date. Her partner is shocked but insists that Beth and Megan should know as well. As the three friends discuss the events of that evening, they find that it has majorly influenced their lives – especially the choices which Beth and Joanne made.

The premise of the story is just about passable. The good thing in the narration is how the impact of a single event can have a cascading effect on many lives. The build-up of the characters and the choices they make is weak in parts, especially the story around Beth’s relationship and Joanne’s career choice. The ending has a twist but the story ends rather poorly.

An average read unlikely to be feel satisfying when you reach the last page.


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