Almost A Crime 4 - The End (Pages 252 - end)

 RATING: SO SO

SPOILERS!!!

I have to say that I enjoyed the first part of the book, that is, all the events that lead to discover that the woman who Tom had an affair with is Louise, and how she does everything to hurt him and Octavia. Thanks to her close relationship with Octavia, she gets the munition to hurt her. We discover that the reason of her hatred for Octavia is because she aborted a child who she discovered had spina bifida. It was when Tom gets told about it that Octavia knows that the only other person who knew was Louise. After a very tense encounter between the two women, Louise decides to take an overdose of painkillers, but she survives and has to stay in hospital for many weeks.

I loved this part, but from that point on I found that the plot dragged on and on, and I didn't like the way the characters behave. Octavia starts flirting with Gabriel, and they eventually get together. Yet, their relationship fails when he invites him to spend a week in the house her father has in Barbados, and Gabriel realises that he doesn't like her way of life. They decide to part ways, and he tells her that she needs to admit that she still loves Tom.

Things between Tom and Octavia have ups and downs, and she hires a lawyer to file for a divorce but she doesn't tell him. Octavia becomes very jealous of Lauren, an acquaintance of theirs, but there is nothing to it. 

The climax of the novel is when Ocatvia and her partner organze an event for Lauren's charity, and during that event Louise reappears and kidnaps Octavia's baby, Minty, while she was looked after by Zoe, Marianne's daughter. At the same time Ocatvia's father, Felix, has a heart attack.

Octavia remembers the caravan that Anna, Louise's mother, has, and she discovers that it is in Cornwall, so she goes there, and Louise is there. After a confrontation, Louise finally hands over the baby. And in London Felix dies and Marianne is by his side. Before dying, he tells her to tell Octavia that Tom loves her.

In the end Octavia ends up with Tom and they decide to give their marriage another go. There are other couples. Marianne finally gets together with Bob. Sandy, Louise's husband, falls for Pattie, the woman who fought to protect the wood. And Melanie, Octavia's partner, gets together with Gabriel.

I liked the idea of the book, and I enjoyed the first part. Yet, I was quite bored when reading the rest. I think it dragged for too many pages, and I found the characters' attitudes unbelievable.