The Other Half

I received a digital advance copy of The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell via NetGalley. The Other Half is scheduled for release on November 21, 2023.

The Other Half is a murder mystery set among a group of high-class Brits. The group is centered on Rupert, a man bold enough to host a black-tie 30th birthday party in a McDonald’s. Rupert’s girlfriend is found dead the following morning, leaving all the party guests as suspects. Caius is the detective on the case, working through the alibis and lies to find out who killed the woman.

Caius was definitely the strongest character here, carrying a backstory and issues into the case that make him interesting to watch as he searches for the killer. Around him, the suspects were generally less interesting, falling more into types than feeling like fully formed individuals.

As Caius works through the mystery, the overall storyline worked for me. I had questions throughout, and felt that most of the threads tied together in the end. Around the seventy percent mark, however, the story felt a bit draggy, then picked up with Caius making rapid discoveries and connecting dots. In this section, I didn’t always follow his leaps, sometimes because I had lost track of a character in what was a relatively large cast.

Overall, The Other Half was a fun murder mystery contrasting a well-to-do group of suspects with a working class detective. I would definitely read other mysteries from Vassell.