By Jane Jesmond https://jane-jesmond.com/ @AuthorJJesmond
Published by Verve Books https://www.vervebooks.co.uk/index.php @VERVE_Books
320 pages ISBN 9780857308498
Publication date 27 February 2024
I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley. Thanks to the Author and Publisher for organising this and accepting me onto this Blog Tour.
The cover
Well, there’s no room for doubt what this novel is about with the vaccine ampoule. The strapline ‘Six decades. Seven people. One unspeakable secret.’ Is perfect.
My thoughts
Comedy is all about timing. Capturing the zeitgeist can also be important with the other arts too. I read this novel whilst the Covid 19 enquiry is in full swing (which I am ignoring) and the timing is perfect. The message the story delivers is certainly an important one and for this reason alone I hope it is widely read.
Its June 2017 and Phiney (Josephine) Wistman’s much loved grandfather Wilf is dead. She discovers this in a garbled message from her distraught step-grandmother Dora, who is coming down to Coventry from Matlock. Wilf died in Coventry, so Dora assumed that he had gone down to visit Phiney, but she knew nothing about his visit. The mystery deepens when the police say it is suicide and not some tragic accident. They know this because there was a witness, a local journalist Mat Torrington, who confirms to Dora and Phiney what he saw. Wilf has struggled all his life with the effects from childhood polio, he is a battler, a survivor determined to wring the maximum out of life. Why would he tie his much-loved assistance dog Jack to a fence and then jump off a railway bridge? It makes no sense to Phiney and Dora cannot accept he would do such a thing. Unable to let matters lie the decide to start asking questions.
In Wilf’s old clock making workshop Phiney discovers a box of old papers, but it is one left out on the workbench that catches her eye. A newspaper clipping from The Coventry Evening Telegraph from July 1957, with a photo of 8 people outside Poulters Pharmaceuticals. Great grandfather Harry had worked there all his life, and it seems Wilf had worked there for one summer holidays when a student. Could the answers Dora and Phiney are looking for be connected to events in 1957?
If you love mysteries then you are in for a treat, not only is this a whodunnit but also a what-the-hell-did-they-do, so a two in one bargain. Rarely do I pick up a book and be unsure where the narrative arc is going, but in this case, I was flummoxed. An incident in 1957 is the key but we do not discover what it was or the magnitude until the conclusion of the story. This is so well disguised you will run through so many possibilities and that is before you need to work out who is behind it all. More than enough to keep the most demanding reader occupied.
Phiney is the central character and is the strong, resilient and capable female that the author writes so well. She is rather self -absorbed and avoids toxins, food additives and even mobile phone radiation almost like somebody wracked with OCD. There is a good reason for why she is consumed by worry though, which many will empathise with. This self-obsession has damaged her relationships, particularly with Dora, though through the story she becomes more enlightened to the plight of others.
Poor Dora is put through the emotional wringer, but it is her determination that keeps the investigation moving. As we see developments from her perspective, we warm to her.
It is journalist Mat who has the investigative skills and early in the story one character tells Phiney he is a man not to be trusted (well he is a journalist). A simple ploy but a masterstroke as you read along and to paraphrase the old Harmony Hairspray ad ‘Is he or isn’t he’ on their side.
The plot is clever and quite believable, probably more so with developments over the last twenty years. The story line does jump around between 1977, 1957 and 2017 (where it skips around a number of weeks) but it is easy to follow. The storyline is peppered with incident and low-key action before the build up to a big confrontation. There is some violence, but it delivered in an understated way that works on a psychological level rather than being graphic, sometimes the mind worrying what might happen proves worse than the reality. As with the events of 1957, it’s the dawning realisation of what has happened. All skilfully expressed within the prose.
The central theme is one of trust versus deception. The modern world works on a basis of trust, be it paper money and investments to what we surround ourselves with and put in our bodies. Our new three-piece suite has a label to say it is fire resistant, which we take on trust, but is it? Once trust is eroded the system collapses, best illustrated by the queues outside banks when there are rumours about it which then become self-perpetuating. Throughout the story characters place trust in others and what they are told but behind it all is one big deception.
The description of the polio virus, its effects and the science behind immunology is excellent, pitched at just the right level. The author could give her friend and fellow author, Fiona Erskine a run for her money with the pitching of science in a thrilling story, being entertaining and at the same time enlightening is no easy task to pull off. One of the greatest benefits to mankind has been the development of immunology, with vaccines making many once fatal or debilitating diseases, like measles and polio, a thing of the past. There has always been people who see it as something unnatural, but now we have active anti-vaxers and concerns at side effects, the question is what level of risk is acceptable?
A Quiet Contagion is an excellent science-based thriller that manages to be great entertainment but also thought provoking.
A Quiet Contagion can be purchased direct from the publisher here
The author
Jane Jesmond writes crime, thriller and mystery fiction. Her debut novel, On The Edge – the first in a series featuring dynamic, daredevil protagonist Jen Shaw – was a Sunday Times Best Crime Fiction of the Month pick. The sequel, Cut Adrift, was selected as a Times Thriller of the Month and a Sunday Times Book of the Year upon its publication. Jesmond also recently published Her, a speculative standalone novel, with Storm Publishers. A Quiet Contagion is a brand-new standalone and her third book with VERVE Books.
Although she loves writing (and reading) thrillers and mysteries, her real life is very quiet and unexciting. Dead bodies and dangerous exploits are not a feature! She lives by the sea in the northwest tip of France with a husband and a cat and enjoys coastal walks and village life. Unlike Jen Shaw, she is terrified of heights!
Source: Publisher’s website
Don’t forget to check out the other great reviews on this blog tour:
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