Published by Constable & Robinson,
17 July 2014.
ISBN: 978-1-47803-3571-1 (Paperback)
How do you go on with anything resembling normal life
when your only child has been brutally murdered? Is it even possible? Will
anything ever be normal again?
In Letters
to My Daughter’s Killer, Ruth Sutton’s way of attempting to come to terms
with the death of her daughter Lizzie is to write to the murderer, and tell him
exactly how it was for her.
Her
memories of the night it happened, the police investigation and identification
of the murderer, the trial and its aftermath, coping with her four-year-old
granddaughter Florence’s shock and grief as well as her own: all this and more
is set out piece by harrowing piece, in an attempt to wring some remorse out of
the killer and gain a little peace of mind for herself.
In
terms of writing style, Staincliffe sets herself several challenges which would
faze far more heavyweight authors. Not only does she write in the first person,
and succeed in getting right under Ruth Sutton’s skin; she also moves deftly
from present to past tense without missing a beat. And as if that wasn’t
enough, the entire book is addressed to the killer in a way which ensures the
reader never loses sight of him.
It’s
not only Ruth who comes vividly to life; the whole cast of characters including
the murderer could step out of the pages and continue to exist outside the
story. Ruth’s own family and friends and the killer’s, the police and court
officials, even the teacher at little Florence’s school: scratch any of them
and they would bleed.
Staincliffe handles the police and courtroom procedures
and forensic details with the sure hand you’d expect from the author of more
than twenty workmanlike crime novels. But this one takes her to a whole new
level. I don’t often have difficulty stepping back and seeing fiction for what
it is, but I became so immersed in Ruth’s life and feelings that several times
I protested out loud when she described a particularly clumsy bit of policing,
or a barrister’s blatant attempt to twist the facts.
It’s
not a murder mystery. The murder is centre-stage from the start, and the
mystery of who did it doesn’t last long. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a book
which will keep you riveted simply because Ruth Sutton is so real and you
suffer right along with her.
Publishers
talk about the ‘breakthrough’ novel which turns a better-than-competent midlist
author into a bestseller. If there’s any justice, this is Cath Staincliffe’s.
------
Reviewer: Lynne
Patrick
Cath Staincliffe was
brought up in Bradford and hoped to become an entomologist (insects) then a
trapeze artist before settling on acting at the age of eight. She
graduated from Birmingham University with a Drama and Theatre Arts degree and
moved to work as a community artist in Manchester where she now lives with her
family. Looking for Trouble, published in 1994, launched private eye
Sal, a single parent struggling to juggle work and home, onto Manchester’s mean
streets. It was short listed for the Crime Writers Association’s John
Creasey best first novel award, serialised on BBC Radio 4, Woman’s Hour and
awarded Le Masque de l’Année in France. Cath has published a further
seven Sal Kilkenny mysteries. Cath is also a scriptwriter, creator of ITV’s hit
police series, Blue Murder, which ran for five series from 2003 –
2009 starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis. Cath writes for radio
and created the Legacy drama series which features a chalk-and-cheese,
brother and sister duo of heir hunters whose searches take them into the past
lives of families torn apart by events.Trio, a stand-alone novel, moved away from crime to
explore adoption and growing up in the 1960s. Cath’s own story, of
tracing and being re-united with her Irish birth family and her seven brothers
and sisters, featured in the television documentary Finding Cath from
RTE.Split
Second, Cath’s latest novel in her
stand-alone series about ethical dilemmas, explores the question of whether to
intervene or not when violence erupts in a public place – and what the
consequences might be. Dead To Me, a prequel to the popular Scott
& Bailey TV show, sees the two women detectives thrown together for
the very first time as they investigate the brutal murder of a teenage girl.
Cath
is a founder member of Murder Squad, a virtual collective of northern
crime writers.
www.cathstaincliffe.co.uk
Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.
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