The Woman on the Pier: An absolutely gripping new suspense thriller by the author of Sunday Times bestseller The Dinner Guest Paperback – 11 Nov. 2021

After losing her daughter in a horrifying terrorist attack, Caroline is struggling to make sense or find meaning in anything. Her relationship with her husband is falling apart and she cannot face work, when finally she stumbles across her late daughter's messages to a secret boyfriend which reveal that he is the reason she was in Stratford that day and not in Somerset,. He is the reason she has died. And Caroline needs him to pay for what he has done.This book has so much going on it was amazingly intense but not too much that you weren't able to follow it-the pace and plot were exquisite.

Rating: 4.2/5This is my second experience of B.P. Walter, having previously read the very finely penned domestic noir, "The Dinner Guest". Although "The Woman on the Pier" is a very different story, there are certain qualities that it shares in common with the author's previous novel: The title and the official synopsis will not adequately prepare you for the content of the book that you subsequently read; the themes are dark and potentially disturbing; all of the characters are flawed to some degree; the narrative moves across a variety of time frames; it is well-written and cleverly constructed.I also have to say that there will be people who will feel very uncomfortable with - and potentially even distressed by - some of the novel's themes. Under normal circumstances I would include an advisory note in my review highlighting those specific themes and warning people who may find them overly upsetting. I am not going to do that in this particular case, because I sense that the author has deliberately structured the novel in such a way as to make for a shocking and uncomfortable reading experience at certain points. Achieving that effect depends, at least to a degree, upon the audience being blindsided. Hence, I believe, the reasoning behind the content of the official synopsis and the choice of book title being somewhat delusive.Not everyone will like this book. In fact, I suspect it is capable of dividing opinion quite strongly. However, as Caroline, a screenwriter and lead protagonist of this novel says, "It sounds cruel, but I've always rather liked doing that. Disconcerting people. Challenging their sense of the norm and throwing their presumptions back in their smug faces ... A writer has to be brave enough 'to go there', I've always thought. Tackle the problems you don't want to talk about. Make people feel uncomfortable. Because that's where the find out the most about themselves. And usually - not always, but usually - they don't like what they find out."For my money, B.P. Walter has produced another intelligently written suspenseful drama that makes for compelling, if at times discomfiting, reading. I will certainly be back for his next offering.

The first 1/3 of the book was interesting, got me hooked and wanted to find out what the mother was going to do to revenge her daughter’s tragedy. But since the first big “twist” the whole book went downhill, so many unbelievable twists and turns crammed into the book and so many vomit scenes which contributed nothing to the whole plot.

I normally really dislike novels with "iffy" leading characters but the pace of this novel sweeps all those Victorian ideals of "worthy " principal leads clean away. To be approached with caution if you yourself are at all straightlaced. Bad things happen to most of the people. I rather wish we could have had more of Caroline's Australian mother, as she was shaping up to be a very promising old reprobate. The teenagers in the novel were particularly well realised. I look forward to the writer's next novel.

This was a good book with interesting characters.Read in two days as once I got into it couldn't put in down

Poor Caroline Byrne’s life is turned upside down when her daughter Jessica dies in a terrorist attack. She tries to find a teenager she believes is responsible. She is hysterical and dangerous. A brilliantly thought out plot. Unputdownable of course.

Was easy to read could work plot ending was a bit werid

I love everything this author has written so I was excited to receive this on publication day and started it straight away. Unfortunately, I’m surprised it even got published. The editing is poor with multiple typos etc throughout. The story is far fetched and feels incomplete. It feels like the author had lots of ideas for different books and then tried to drop all the plots into one and never properly developed any of them. If I had read this author-blind, I would never have attributed it to B P Walter as all of his other work is far, far better. Genuinely surprised at how awry this story went.

Extremely well written. Good characters. All plausible. The story line so compelling I'm afraid I had to skin read a few paragraphs.