In most novels, pre-empting a central plot twist spoils the reading experience, but here it is Cannon’s meticulously crafted characters who drive the story.

Cannon’s previous career as an NHS psychiatrist infuses her writing. She treats her characters with immense care and compassion, inviting the reader not merely to be interested in them but to show them concern and empathy...Throughout Cannon’s writing, there is an intrinsic understanding of the quiet pain that accompanies loneliness.... Compassionate, thoughtful and tender, it is a novel exploring the pain of nostalgia and personal truths so painful we hide them even from ourselves. As Florence says at one point: “Everyone has words they keep to themselves. It’s what you do with your secret that really matters. Do you drag it behind you forever, like a difficult suitcase, or do you find someone to tell?

Like M Scott Peck’s A Bed by the Window, Cannon’s second novel involves a mystery plot of crime and redemption. And like Peck, Cannon is a practising doctor, and knows what she is talking about...I have reservations about the construction of this novel: it can be clunky, slow-paced, sententious and sentimental...Florence’s character is lovely: sweet, sharp and argumentative, she brims with quips and retorts...What is the “third thing about Elsie” advertised by the title? The reader intuits the answer, which, when it surfaces in the final chapter, is powerful and profound.