Greg Fleming reviews Polly Phillips' My Best Friend's Murder

The sometimes rocky dynamics of female relationships have given rise to some great thrillers — Jane Harper's Force of Nature, Alafair Burke's The Better Sister or, most recently, our own Rose Carlyle's The Girl in the Mirror spring to mind. This paean to another toxic pairing by journo and part-time teacher Polly Phillips is as much "chick lit" as thriller.

Pre-publication Phillips posted a countdown of "the greatest toxic friendships of all time" on Twitter that had inspired this entertaining debut. That kicked off with Gossip Girls' Blair and Sabrina and proceeded through Sex and the City's Carrie and Samantha and 90210's Brenda and Kelly. Readers who enjoyed those small-screen frenemy battles will find plenty to celebrate here.

Izzy is straight out of central casting, with "legs up to her armpits blonde hair and perfect features". She's whip-smart, rich, married to a guy she met in high school who looks like Tom Cruise ("only taller"), has a cute daughter named Tilly and is the perfect hostess. In contrast, our narrator Bec has a modest house, little self-confidence and works — as seems to be compulsory with these things — as an assistant at a women's magazine where she does little but make a lot of tea.

Still, her fortunes are looking up as the novel begins. Her boyfriend of some years has just proposed to her. And the first person she tells is Izzy.

But, as one character reflects, their relationship amounts to "two decades of emotional abuse", and while there is a murder here — Bec's slow (painfully slow for this reader) — realisation of the relationship's dysfunction is the real heart of the book.

Phillips has a refreshingly direct style, capturing the tensions between Bec and Izzy without resorting to melodrama — a word here, a gift discarded there suffices.

Of course Izzy's husband — who works in finance and is writing a novel in his spare time — and Bec have some history; and the old "will they won't they?" tussle drives the narrative in the second half of the book.

Phillips has an acute eye for female and family relationships — the 30 pages dedicated to a rather disastrous and funny Christmas Day will strike a chord with many readers.

Unfortunately, the male characters never come alive to the same degree — but Izzy is a fantastic creation.

A sub-plot — involving Bec's personal trainer brother and an A-list American movie star — seems transported from Notting Hill but sets the scene for the final (rather surprising) denouement.

There's no shortage of thrillers dealing with this theme but Phillips' deft mash-up of chick-flick cliches (the blurb references The Rumour and The Holiday) and thriller tropes is a smart and entertaining addition to the genre.

My Best Friend's Murder, by Polly Phillips (Simon & Schuster, $35)