Sally Spencer made an interesting narration choice in The Company. Part of the book covers the police investigation of a car “accident”, while one of the survivors, a man who was hospitalized with mental problems, is responsible for other aspects of the story. Maybe others will appreciate Rob Conroy’s thought patterns more than I did.

Set in 1991, the story opens with a hired car speeding along a road. The occupants are four members, two generations, of the Conroy family, Tony, Edward, and brothers John and Rob. Tony’s administrative assistant is jammed in the back with John and Rob. Uncle Tony is upset that they’re going to be late, but his nephew, Rob, is a little gleeful and angry. Uncle Tony’s plans for Conroy Enterprises could make the family company even bigger, or he could bankrupt the entire business, including Rob’s beloved publishing house. As the car picks up speed and Tony can’t slow it down, there’s a terrible collision with a military truck.

Rob wakes up in the hospital to discover he and the administrative assistant are the only two survivors. And, two hours before the car accident, the family patriarch and company founder, Charles Conroy, died. Now, his will has even greater importance to the surviving family, and to the police. Chief Inspector Owen Flint has even more interest in learning about the family when he discovers the hired car was sabotaged. The crash wasn’t an accident. And, he informs Rob that it’s possible the dead men were not the intended victims. He wants to protect Rob, but finds a man unwilling to play the victim. When Rob’s fiancee died, he had a mental breakdown and ended up in the hospital for two years. Now, he doesn’t really want to reveal all of his family’s secrets to the police. And, it takes Rob quite a while to discover he doesn’t know or misunderstood many of the stories from his family.

To be honest, while I felt sympathy for the man who only wants to save his small publishing company, and doesn’t care about the family enterprise, Rob was a difficult character to like. The entire plot could have been uncovered earlier if Rob had told the truth to Flint, who was a friend from years before. That’s always one of my pet peeves, though, amateurs who will not confide in the police even when the police are friends.

I was reading this book for a review for a journal, so it didn’t really matter than everything I saw from the publisher referred to this as a thriller. However, for readers who do care, The Company is not a thriller. It’s a somewhat confusing book about family secrets.

Sally Spencer is a pseudonym for Alan Rustage. Rustage’s website is http://alanrustage.com/

The Company by Sally Spencer. Severn House, 2021. ISBN 9780727890948 (hardcover), 272p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .PDF to review for a journal.