The Old Boys by Mark Gillespie

The Old Boys by Mark Gillespie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The past is about to catch up to The Lads, but whose past is it?

As the 25th reunion of Strathmore Academy’s Class of 1995 approaches, three estranged friends are thrust together under terrifying circumstances. In their youth, these men had been fast friends, a gang of three, bullies that had terrorized their classmates unmercifully. After school, they’d gone their separate ways: reinvented themselves, faded from the scene. But apparently, someone remembers “The Lads.”

After a traumatic experience as a drug dealer, Jay Green had cleaned up his act. He was now a successful businessman celebrating a recent promotion with a loving fiancée and anticipating the arrival of their first baby. Davie Muir, married with children, moved from Glasgow to London after surviving a horrific lorry accident that killed numerous people and left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life. However, Iain Lewis, the third member of The Lads, got left behind. As his two best-mates-forever dropped him and moved on, Iain remained mired in resentment, struggling to adapt to adult life.

But on the eve of the reunion weekend, an event none of The Lads planned to attend, forces outside their control put these men unexpectedly back together for the first time since leaving school. They find themselves trapped in an isolated cabin in the snowy Scottish Highlands, with only a cryptic note claiming one of the three is a killer who must confess before the sun goes down or they all will die.

The Old Boys quickly proved to be an exciting, unputdownable psychological thriller. What first seems to be about three schoolmates reconnecting in adulthood soon unfolds to reveal their unsavory pasts and becomes a twisty-turny revenge story. I was utterly taken in. The abductions were slick and each cleverly different from the others. The men’s discussions and revelations as they came back together after being apart for so long felt emotionally difficult and realistic. Their continuous struggle to make sense of their circumstances, figure out who was behind it all and find a way out made for a true page-turner.

I recommend THE BOYS for readers who enjoy psychological thrillers, tales where the past not only meets the future but collides with it, and stories of revenge and retribution.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy through Hidden Gems Books.


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