Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald
When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O’Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find ... working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders.
Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer – all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou...
And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything – including her life.
Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman...
About the author
Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of thirteen adult and young-adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and adapted for a major BBC drama. Her 2019 dark- comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in the Literary Review, Herald Scotland, Guardian, Sunday Times, The Week and Daily Telegraph, shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award. The critically acclaimed Ash Mountain (2020) and Keep Her Sweet (2022) soon followed. Helen worked as a criminal-justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband.
Review
‘Halfway House’ is a dark and humourous book that really does send shivers down your spine! I will read anything that Helen Fitzgerald reads and was excited to see that she was setting a book in Scotland this time round. Not a biased Scot at all! I picked this up one night when I couldn't sleep and the next thing I was aware of was finishing the book and it being 4.30 in the morning! It kept me hooked from the start to the finish, it was a real page-turner.
Lou O’Dowd is fed up of life in Australia and decides to head to Edinburgh to stay with her cousin who is performing at the Fringe. She manages to land a job as a night worker at a halfway house for released prisoners. These aren't your normal burglars and petty thieves, these are men who have committed the worse crimes possible. And it's her responsibility to look after them on the night shift. They aren't allowed visitors, no drugs, no phones and no internet for some of them. What could go wrong?
Helen has created a banging character in Lou as omg I freaking hated this girl. From living off a sugar daddy back in Australia, having no real connections, being irresponsible, carrying on as if she wasn't in a serious situation… I just hated her from start to finish.! I just kept shouting at her in my mind ‘what are you doing?!’ You can tell that Helen had great fun writing this character as she is quite a character. The offenders are also perfectly drawn as they really do make your skin crawl and we have a great variety - paedophiles, double murderers, someone who has encouraged people to die and a chronic flasher! All horrible and brilliantly portrayed. Then there is the staff - wish we had more glimpses of these as I think there was potential to make them even worse.
Lou manages to stumble from one disaster to another and there is no question that this is going to end up horribly. Will she learn from the experience is the main question and I'm torn on that one. I honestly flew through this one and had to know the ending as it was like a train hurtling to a clifftop edge!
Let me know if you pick this one up!
