Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia (Trade Paperback – 28 November 2023)

Series: Kill Your Brother – Book Two

Length: 384 pages

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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One of my favourite Australian authors, the scarily good Jack Heath, returns with another twisted and brilliant thriller, Kill Your Husbands.

Easily one of the best Australian thriller authors at the moment has to be the always impressive Jack Heath.  Hailing from my hometown of Canberra, Heath has written a compelling range of epic thrillers over the years, all of which have been fun and captivating in their own way.  I am a major fan of his Timothy Blake series (check out my reviews for Hideout and Headcase), which follows the gruesome adventures of a murder-solving cannibal.  Heath has also produced several other great standalone or Australian series, including his 2021 novel, Kill Your Brother.  An intense and shocking thriller that forced a highly damaged protagonist to choose between killing her guilty brother or dying herself, Kill Your Brother was one of the best pieces of Australian fiction in 2021 and I had such a great time reading it.  As such, when I saw that Heath had a new Australian thriller coming out this year, I was very excited, especially when I found out it was a sequel to Kill Your Brother.  This new book, Kill Your Husbands, had a wicked plot synopsis, and I fell in love with it the moment I read it.  One of my most anticipated books for the second half of 2023, Kill Your Husbands was a shocking read that I had so much fun with.

It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend away for three couples, longtime friends since school the six overworked and stressed adults decide to escape their taxing lives for a weekend up in the mountains.  With no internet or cell reception, their getaway was supposed to be a quiet time of drinking and bushwalking.  However, after the topic of partner-swapping is raised on the first night, the entire mood of the weekend shifts.  What starts as a joke soon turns into an elaborate plan to ensure anonymity between partners, with the lights turned off and the men choosing a bedroom at random.  No one will know who they’ve been with, and no one will ever be certain if they slept with anyone other than their spouse.

However, when the lights come back on, one of the participants is missing.  A search soon reveals their body outside, clearly the victim of a violent attack.  With no cell reception and the keys to the cars missing, the remaining five people quickly become suspicious of the other survivors.  As the weekend continues and more people begin to disappear and die, old wounds, festering grudges and decaying relationships come to the fore, turning husbands against wives and friend against friend.

Two weeks later, Senior Constable Kiara Lui returns to the murder scene with her girlfriend, Elise.  Having interviewed the survivors, Kiara is certain at least one of them is lying and the killer is within her grasp.  Kiara knows that the answers lie within the house, but with strange occurrences occurring around the property, one person still missing, and her own girlfriend’s strange behaviour starting to concern her, can Kiara break through all the lies and secrets and find the truth before the killer strikes again?

This was another excellent and thrilling read from Heath, who pulls together another insane, yet highly clever, mystery that you really cannot put down.  Making full use of Heath’s outrageous plot, Kill Your Husbands is a dark and twisty novel that I had so much fun reading and which is easily one of the best pieces of Australian fiction I have read all year.

I loved the unique, memorable and very twisted central idea that Heath came up with for Kill Your Husbands, as murderous partner swapping is honestly it was one of the more amusing and outrageous plot focuses I have seen.  Starting off with a quick introduction sequence, the reader is soon enthralled in split focus narrative throughout Kill Your Husbands as half the chapters recount the weekend of the murders and the events leading up to the killings, while the rest of the chapters are set after the murders and focus on Senior Constable Kiara Lui, a supporting character from Kill Your Brother, as she attempts to solve the crime.  This proves to be a very clever and impressive way to showcase the plot, and I loved the simultaneous look at the investigation, the weekend in question, and all the key events that led up to the crime.  Both separate storylines are very interesting and compelling in their own way, especially as they paint two different pictures of the chaotic events in question.  Thanks to Heath using first names during the chapters set in the past and only referring to surnames when it comes to the later investigation, you don’t get any spoilers about what is going to happen during the weekend.  As such, it isn’t until the end of the book that you are completely certain about who dies and who survives, and this allows you to remain on the edge of your seat as your watch the chaotic events unfold.

Heath paces out both arcs of the story extremely well, and they work well together to tell an intriguing and powerful story.  The scenes set in the past tell a powerful and character-driven tale, with flashbacks to prior interactions, details about their turbulent relationships, and a great range of petty slights that ensure everyone had a motive for killing the rest of the group.  Heath ensures that the characters are all stewing in this during the early chapters in the mountain before the partner swapping scene occurs.  The author sets this up perfectly, with the subterfuge, secret plans, and hidden desires all coming into their choices, and the resulting chaos sufficiently messing with them.  As such, all of them are primed to be the killer when the first victim emerges, and the subsequent environment of fear, suspicion and hatred make for some outstanding scenes, especially when all their secrets come to light.

At the same time, the reader gets a fantastic look at the ongoing investigation being undertaken by Kiara as she tries to get to grips with the case.  There are some great scenes here, especially as Kiara independently uncovers the secrets of the three married couples, which works into the other timeline extremely well.  There are some fun moments in this part of the investigation, especially when Kiara and Elise make the interesting decision to book out the murder house for a holiday so they can try and find some answers, while also dealing with their own intense personal issues.  While there are some excellent moments in this part of the book, the investigation angle of Kill Your Husbands is the weaker half of the novel, mostly because it lacks the juicy details the lead up to all the murders.  I also didn’t think that Heath needed to shoehorn in the characters from Kill Your Brother into the plot, as fresh new police protagonists would have also been just as effective.  Still this second half of the book was very fascinating, and the clues revealed within give you some great hints about who the killer is and how they got away with it.

The eventual solution for Kill Your Husbands is exceedingly clever, and I really liked how all the key events of the book played out.  The climax of the murderous weekend is pretty damn shocking in its entirety, and I loved just how well Heath managed to keep secret who survived and who died right until the end.  The killer’s motivations and the events that drove them to it are well set out, and the scenes where they commit their crimes really drive home just how dangerous they are.  Certain other reveals towards the end of the book, especially when Kiara gets close to the truth, reveal just how clever this entire story is, and I loved how certain innocuous mentions or clues are well utilised later in the story.  The entire solution of the book, as well as the final confrontation between Kiara and the killer are just perfect, and you will come away from Kill Your Husbands extremely satisfied after travelling through such a captivating, unique and brilliant mystery.

This elaborate story and murder mystery wouldn’t be possible without the great characters featured in Kill Your Husbands.  I particularly loved the six friends who journeyed to the cabin and who end up being pulled into the deadly partner swapping/murder plot.  Heath does a wonderful job of effectively introducing them and you get drawn into their complex lives, filled with emotional damage and occasionally petty problems.  While you do feel sorry for some of the characters, most of them are somewhat despicable and unlikeable to a degree, which ensures that are highly interesting and fun in the context of the main murder.  I loved how many personal issues and secrets came out as the story progressed, and you really get invested in seeing who the killer is, possibly more than finding out who survived.  I loved how fun and interesting these main characters where and Heath did such a great job featuring him in this crazy story.

The other major characters are Senior Constable Kiara Lui and her girlfriend, Elise, who serve as the main figures in the investigation arc of the book.  As I mentioned about, Kiara and Elise both appeared in Kill Your Brother, with Elise serving as the main character of that novel.  However, Elise takes more of a backseat here with Kiara stepping up and leading the investigation.  While I don’t think Kill Your Husbands really needed some of the drama and ongoing trauma surrounding these characters, I did enjoy seeing them still together after the events of Kill Your Brother, and I liked how Heath moved Kiara more to the fore in this book.  Kiara was a badass investigator, and it was great to see her try to prove herself while also still concerned about her clearly traumatised girlfriend.  For her part, Elise is still trying to prove herself after her controversial past the helpless position she found herself in during the events of Kill Your Brother.  As such, she takes some big risks and acts very recklessly in this book, often to the detriment of Kiara’s investigation or emotions.  This extra layer of emotional charge ensured that Kill Your Husbands’ plot was a little more convoluted and intense, and I did enjoy seeing these two characters again.  That being said, you don’t need to have read Kill Your Brother to full appreciate these characters in this sequel, and you can get the full range of emotions from reading Kill Your Husbands as a standalone read.  I honestly came away from Kill Your Husbands very impressed with how Heath introduced and utilised his characters and they were such a distinctive and fun group of figures who were perfect to get wrapped up in a murder.

Overall, Kill Your Husbands was another outstanding and compelling novel from Jack Heath, who continues to show why he is the master of crazy Australian crime fiction.  Heath had a lot of fun with his outrageous plot and the way he worked his excellent and damaged characters into this complex murder mystery was very impressive.  A captivating and dark read from start to finish, Kill Your Husbands is one of the most memorable and intense Australian thrillers of 2023 and Heath is a must-read author for anyone looking for some truly shocking and mental crime fiction.

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