By Paula Hawkins http://paulahawkinsbooks.com/
Published by Doubleday (Penguin) https://www.penguin.co.uk/
298 pages ISBN 9780857524447
Publication date 31 August 2021
I won a hardback copy in a Twitter competition. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Nina Pottell for arranging this competition.
From the blurb
‘What is wrong with you?’
Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.
Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?
Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
Look what you started.
Synopsis
Nosy Miriam discovers the dead body of Dan on his canal boat when she goes to tell him he has overstayed on his mooring. On the floor she finds a key and pockets it.
Dysfunctional Laura returns home, covered in blood, without her key and so must smash a window to her flat to get in. Shortly before she was seen on the tow path and so she becomes the prime suspect for the murder.
All is not straightforward though. Dan was the son of Angela whose sister Carla suffered the tragic loss of her son Ben who died when Angela was looking after him and Dan found his body. This caused Carla and Theo’s marriage to fail though they remained close. Theo couldn’t forgive Angela whereas Carla was at least partially reconciled with Angela, before her death, and Dan. When Irene, Angela’s neighbour, finds a graphic novel drawn by Dan amongst Angela’s books what they believed to be the truth starts to unravel.
My thoughts
Every couple of years or so a novel takes off in spectacular style, coming seemingly from nowhere to sell millions of copies. It may be due to a TV book club endorsement like Richard and Judy or Oprah, word of mouth or just even a title with prescient timing that captures the mood of the public. Whatever the reason it usually guarantees good sales in the short to medium term and the major publishers offering contracts in the future. A few years ago, Paula Hawkins’ ‘The Girl on the Train’ was one such novel and it was quickly turned into a Hollywood movie making the author hot property. Such success in sales doesn’t always equate to great literature; The Da Vinci Code sold millions and was an entertaining read but I wouldn’t consider Dan Brown a great writer.
I must confess that I have not read the author’s earlier books (I’ve got The Girl on the Train as an e-book on an older device I believe) so this was a good chance to see what I thought.
The novel is set in a small part of London around the Regent’s Canal and there is a lovely hand drawn map of the area in the inside cover to help those of us unfamiliar with the area visualise it.
The prose style is both comfortable, not trying to be highbrow or complex, and written with the confidence of experience and sales security. The pacing feels about right, a little slow at times perhaps but picks up in the final third, and at 300 there is no unnecessary padding. I certainly enjoyed the book from a stylistic point of view.
The plot centres on a collection of damaged individuals and how they react to those around them. The fact that most of the damage has been by the actions of others makes the interactions even more acute and provides motivations for the murder. Each chapter switches from character to character which is a little choppy but allows for progression without going back in time too often and keeps the reader unsure as to the identity of the murderer (or at least it did me).
The characterisation is good, though because of their personal issues none of them are particularly likeable which probably makes for a more interesting book. The fact that I warmed to, or at least had empathy for, Laura most of all when she was a thief who has major psychological problems is an indication of what the rest were. Laura has the greatest physical and psychological problems and is sympathetically written about.
There is an amusing twist with Theo the author who had his great success with ‘The One Who Got Away’ by plagiarising the autobiographical work of Miriam and then struggling with writers’ block. He then goes on to say the going backwards and forwards within the plot was a terrible idea which made me chuckle as authors seem to be doing a lot of that in the recent works I have read. The inserting portions of ‘The One Who Got Away’ between some chapters allowed Miriam’s story to be told without distracting from the main plot line but at the expense of not building up the fear and tension in her tale.
The finding of the graphic novel and its contents was clever devise and ultimately, we end up uncertain whether it represents the truth or not. It provides the catalyst for the crime and its attempted cover up.
It is a novel that plays safe though, being neither gruesome or dark and even the part where Laura goes through a melt-down is underplayed. However, it is a well written book which I enjoyed much more than I expected and now I will probably go back to read The Girl on the Train sometime.
Peter turns the page 