Andrew Smith's Reviews > What Happened to the Bennetts

I found the first half of this book enthralling, shocking, upsetting, and about as impactful as any thriller I’ve read. It’s the kind of story that will benefit from the reader knowing as little as possible about the plot in advance, and for this reason I’ll attempt to give very little away.

Jason Bennett, his wife, and two children are about as close to a perfect family as it’s possible to get. The parents dote on a son and daughter, who seem to be a thriving and well-adjusted pair. Both parents run successful businesses of their own but somehow still seem to find enough time to be fully participative in their children’s lives. Everything is rosy in their garden. So when a setback inexplicably arrives one day it’s a shock – a terrible shock. Suddenly, this family's future is derailed, and who knows which direction it will take from this point.

With their once bright future now looking anything but the ‘safe’ and rather dull, Jason decides that it’s time he stepped up and owned the task of defining their way forward. From this point on it’s all action as he challenges not only those who have clearly set out to destroy their lives but also question those who claim to have become their protectors. Now events pile upon each other with everything happening at breakneck speed. The climax, when it comes, is violently conclusive.

In truth, I’m not sure that the second half of the tale quite lives up to what precedes it, my threshold for accepting what a well meaning but underprepared individual can achieve in a short space of time having been somewhat stretched here. But I do admire the inventiveness of the storytelling, and I really can’t overstate how compelling I found the opening chapters to be.

My thanks to Bedford Square Publishers for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review.