"Five Strangers" by E V Adamson

Full disclosure.  I'm putting all of these comments on books very much after the event in order to provide a decent sized sample of my reading habits and taste that you can use as a baseline if you so wish.  As a result, the detail of some of these books is a bit hazy - particularly where the plotting is complex.  So while this is a genuine and accurate reflection of my feelings about "Five Strangers", I'm not as able as I would like to explain exactly why.

I do know that part of it is definitely that I was left with a feeling of it being mis-sold to me based on the premise.  "Five strangers. They all saw it happen... Didn't they"  left me expecting to be told versions of the event from differing viewpoints bringing out different aspects and prejudices or at least that the "event" was not as it seemed, but it didn't greatly follow through on that in any meaningful way.  Instead, we slowly delve into the lives of some of the witnesses and discover that maybe there were some connections between all those present - and that the horrific random event may have been anything but random.  There's no questioning that this will be a good tale for those who enjoy off-the-scale levels of implausibility and coincidence but I like my books to be significantly more grounded in reality.

Check it out here.