Four Stars for Five by Ilona Bannister

Thrillers are rarely my thing. Many of you will already know that. But there was something about the premise of Five that immediately had me wanting to find out more.

Maybe it was the hundreds of train journeys I’ve taken across the UK and those existential thoughts you have every time while standing on a platform, wondering, “Where are all these people going?” I love a book that feels strangely connected to my own experiences. So it felt like a no-brainer to make Five my first read of the month.

Described as a slow-burn psychological thriller, it lives up to that label.

Five strangers find themselves waiting together on a train platform just outside London. There are only five minutes until the train arrives, and from the very first chapter we know that only four of them will survive.

From there, Bannister unravels each passenger’s story, gradually revealing the lives, choices, and circumstances that have brought them to this exact moment where they finally converge.

These aren’t simply backstories however, they’re psychological analysis’ of people who teeter on the edge of absurdity, while remaining strangely believable.

Firstly, there’s the free-spirited mother facing her comeuppance with a troubled, violent son. Then an irritable elderly woman living in estrangement of her own doing. Next, a self-important business owner with a complicated family life. Followed by a gambling addict whose world is slowly falling apart. Their eventual convergence feels almost melodramatic, but in an addictive sort of way.

Novels with multiple perspectives don’t always work for me as I often find myself constantly restarting my investment every time the narrative shifts to a new character. Here, though, it worked really well as Bannister gives each character just enough depth to make you understand them, without allowing their individual stories to cloud the central mystery unfolding on the platform.

The countdown chapters, marking the passing minutes until tragedy, are especially effective. Bookmarking each characters story, to create a constant sense of momentum that made this an incredibly easy book to race through.

One of my favourite elements, however, was the narration during the platform scenes. These chapters are told by a omniscient narrator who regularly breaks the fourth wall, addressing us, the reader directly. It hooked me almost instantly. It felt fresh, weirdly unsettling, and genuinely clever. Even though this is very much a psychological thriller rather than a fast-paced action thriller, that narrative choice heightened the tension throughout. It almost felt like a sin to stop reading after the opening chapter, knowing that this narrator was speaking directly to you.

In the end, I gave Five four stars.

The premise is fantastic, and it truly is an engaging and highly readable novel. I do think there was room to push the emotional impact a little bit further. While the characters were fascinating, many of their flaws and absurdities made it difficult for me to really care about them, so I was invested in discovering what would happen on the platform, but I wasn’t necessarily emotionally affected by whichever outcome awaited each of them.

Still, if you’re looking something slightly different. Or a psychological thriller with an original concept. Or just something that will pull you out of a slump and mandate that you keep reading “just one more chapter,” I’d definitely recommend Five.

Have you read it? Or is it now on your TBR?

I’d love to hear what you thought!

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