Opening
A shocking perspective flip turns the story on its head: a confessional letter reveals that Grace Bernard’s unseen watcher—and unexpected rival—is her half-brother, Harry Hawthorne, both children of Simon Artemis. As Harry coolly rewrites Grace’s story, her hard-won freedom collides with a brutal truth: she isn’t the architect of the ending—he is.
What Happens
Chapter 16: I Suppose I Should Start by Introducing Myself
The narration switches from Grace to a long letter addressed to her. The writer introduces himself as Harry Hawthorne, Grace’s half-brother and Simon Artemis’s son. Harry recalls a cosseted Surrey childhood with his kind, steady father, Christopher Hawthorne, and his mother, Lottie. At Christopher’s funeral, a careless condolence—“He always treated you just like a son”—exposes a lie. When Harry confronts Lottie, she admits Simon is his biological father, a youthful mistake before she married Christopher. The revelation sickens Harry as much for its social implications as for its personal betrayal: in his eyes, Simon’s flashy “new money” vulgarity affronts the old-money codes Harry was raised to live by, crystallizing the novel’s Class Warfare and Social Inequality tensions.
With household finances suddenly precarious after Christopher’s death, Harry decides to approach Simon. Their first meeting becomes a transactional handshake: Harry’s bluntness impresses Simon, who pays him a six-figure settlement in exchange for silence. But Simon tightens his grip, refusing to let Harry drift away. The attachment curdles into control, and Harry finds himself trapped in Simon’s orbit, the stress mounting. After the deaths of Jeremy and Kathleen Artemis, a drunk and grieving Simon confesses that he has another child: Grace. Curious and hungry for leverage, Harry hunts her down and begins to watch her—quietly, obsessively—recording her solitary routines.
Harry then admits he witnesses Grace at work. He follows her to a wildlife center and watches as she pushes their cousin Andrew into the water and lets him drown. He nearly calls the police, then calculates the scandal would annihilate his own social standing. He shadows her again as she stalks their uncle, Lee, even entering the sex club the night Lee dies. Realizing Grace is methodically erasing the Artemis line, Harry makes a frigid choice: he will let her keep going. Her violence becomes his opportunity—an elegant way to sever himself from Simon and perhaps inherit what remains. He frames their separate acts as a covert alliance, a warped echo of Family, Betrayal, and Belonging.
Chapter 17: 12 p.m.
The diary voice returns. Grace walks out of prison a free woman after her conviction for the murder of Caro Morton is quashed. The moment is strangely quiet—no fanfare, just a brief farewell to her cellmate, Kelly McIntosh—but Grace feels unfiltered triumph humming through her.
She taxis across a sunlit London, grinning. Her flat is scrubbed clean, with wine and tiramisu waiting from her adoptive mother, Sophie. She sinks into a bath, “half hysterical with glee,” and decides the celebration starts with her friend Jimmy Latimer. The chapter closes on pure promise—the calm before the letter detonates it.
Chapter 18: God What a Mess, Grace
Harry’s letter continues from St. Tropez, where he’s babysitting a paranoid, coke-sick Simon. When Harry reads of Grace’s arrest for Caro’s murder, he sneers at what he sees as a sloppy, emotional mistake that jeopardizes her entire project. One night, drunk on sun and power, Simon takes Harry on a speedboat and rips into Lottie as a gold-digger. Rage flashes. Harry smashes a wine bottle over Simon’s head; glass, blood, and seawater mix as Simon tumbles overboard.
Harry finds clarity in the chaos. Thinking of Grace’s quest for Revenge and Vengeance, of both their mothers’ suffering, and of his own need to breathe free of Simon, he pries Simon’s fingers from the hull. He watches him drown and later sells a neat fiction: a tragic boating accident. The family accepts it. Lara, Simon’s sister-in-law, folds Harry into the family foundation and names him CFO.
The letter’s endgame snaps into focus. While Grace sits in prison, Harry hires Kelly McIntosh to spy. Kelly photographs every page of Grace’s manuscript—the very narrative the reader has been following—and keeps pages for fingerprint evidence. Harry now holds a full written confession. He tells Grace that if she harms him or Lara or tries to expose anything, he’ll hand the manuscript to the police. “We won,” he writes, urging her to enjoy her freedom because money isn’t everything. The email self-destructs after she reads it, leaving Grace with nothing but defeat.
Key Events
- The letter reveals Harry Hawthorne as Grace’s half-brother and Simon Artemis’s son.
- Harry secretly surveils Grace and witnesses Andrew’s drowning and Lee’s murder, choosing silence for self-preservation and gain.
- Grace walks free after her conviction for Caro Morton’s death is overturned and revels in a brief victorious calm.
- On a drunken speedboat ride, Harry kills Simon and covers it as an accident, then steps into a lucrative family role.
- Harry weaponizes Grace’s manuscript via Kelly McIntosh, securing evidence to blackmail Grace into permanent silence.
Character Development
Grace Bernard Grace’s euphoric release curdles into helplessness when she learns her brother has been reading—and now owns—her inner life. Her mastery proves fragile: she designs a perfect revenge, only to be caged by her own confession.
Harry Hawthorne Harry evolves from polished spectator to calculating perpetrator. He co-opts Grace’s war, lets her remove the obstacles he won’t, then commits the one killing she most desired—on his terms—and locks her story behind his threat.
Simon Artemis Viewed through Harry’s contempt, Simon is a nouveau-riche tyrant unraveling into paranoia. His attempt to possess his secret son ends with that son letting him sink beneath the waves.
Kelly McIntosh Kelly steps out of the background as a paid traitor. For a price, she turns Grace’s trust and text into evidence, making Harry’s blackmail airtight.
Specific shifts:
- Grace: from exultant liberation to narrative captivity
- Harry: from beneficiary to architect; from hush-money recipient to killer and gatekeeper
- Simon: from controlling patriarch to drowned liability
- Kelly: from cellmate-confidante to mercenary informant
Themes & Symbols
Revenge and Vengeance The novel swaps righteous payback for strategic predation. Grace’s revenge feels rigorous and earned, but Harry’s opportunism trumps her precision. He “finishes” the job without belief—only benefit—and then turns the record of her vengeance into her muzzle. The very text that empowers her becomes the instrument of control.
Class Warfare and Social Inequality Harry’s disdain for Simon’s “new money,” matched with his seamless absorption of the Artemis fortune, reveals how entrenched privilege metabolizes threats and consolidates power. Grace’s insurgency never breaches the class armor; Harry’s pedigree, poise, and resources let him rewrite outcomes behind closed doors.
Family, Betrayal, and Belonging The deepest wound arrives from kin. A brother Grace never knew surveils, judges, and ultimately cages her with her own words. Blood doesn’t bind; it weaponizes. The manuscript—the story of who Grace is—turns into the family’s silencer, binding her to their secret forever.
Symbols
- The Manuscript: authorship turned trap; confession as collateral
- The Speedboat: luxury as crime scene; speed and spectacle masking cold intent
- Simon’s Wine Bottle: self-branded excess literally used to end its maker
Key Quotes
“He always treated you just like a son.”
- This offhand condolence cracks open Harry’s identity. The phrase exposes the family lie that births the letter—and the rivalry—setting Harry on a path from sheltered heir to calculating avenger.
“Half hysterical with glee.”
- Grace’s bath-time euphoria captures her peak of freedom and self-belief. The giddy tone sharpens the irony when Harry’s email arrives, showing how fast triumph turns to entrapment.
“We won.”
- Harry’s declaration reframes Grace’s years of planning as merely one part of his victory. The “we” is a taunt: he claims her labor, her risks, and even her narrative as elements of his success.
“I suppose I should start by introducing myself.”
- The letter’s opening line signals the novel’s structural coup. By reintroducing the narrator, the book reassigns control—Grace’s I becomes Harry’s I—and with it, ownership of the story.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters upend the book’s moral and narrative center. The sudden shift to Harry’s voice forces a re-evaluation of Grace’s reliability and precision, showing how often luck and surveillance shape her “perfect” plan. The revenge thriller’s expected endpoint—Grace triumphant—is denied; power settles not with the audacious disruptor but with the best-positioned opportunist.
The ending welds form to theme: the manuscript we’ve read doubles as the noose around its author’s neck. Grace escapes prison but enters a quieter one built from words, reputation, and class leverage. The family she targets doesn’t defeat her—the family she never knew does. The result is a bleak, elegant conclusion that ties the book’s obsessions—class, control, loyalty, narrative power—into a single, suffocating checkmate.