Published by
Avon,
26 July 2018.
26 July 2018.
ISBN: 978-0-00822354-0 (PB)
It's well known that most violent crime takes place
within families, and it's a sad fact that creates a rich seam for crime and
thriller writers to mine.
Elisabeth Carpenter picked it up and ran with it in her
debut novel, which explored what can happen when a child goes missing. In her
second, there's another missing person, but this time it's a young mother.
Debbie hasn't been seen for thirty years; she failed to
return from a family holiday in Tenerife, leaving behind a husband and two
children including a baby only a few weeks old. It was never clear if she was
dead, or if she had absconded with the husband of her best friend. Her family
moved on and the children grew up – and now there appears to be evidence that
Debbie is alive and trying to make contact.
The story is told from two points of view: Anna, Debbie's
now grown-up daughter who has a family and problems of her own; and Debbie
herself, in alternating chapters set back in 1986, when she was a struggling
mother of a newborn. Both narrating characters are well drawn. I ached for
Anna, who is thrown into confusion by both her desire to know what happened to
her mother; and I almost wept for Debbie, misunderstood and clearly in the grip
of post-natal depression, which was not nearly as well recognized back then.
There are other family members involved in both poignant
situations, of course. Peter, Debbie's husband, is blokeish and insensitive in
1986, but reveals a vulnerable centre in the present-day scenario. Monica,
Debbie's best friend, is a tangle of enigmas, and her 1980s husband Nathan is
too charming to be trusted. Jack, Anna's husband, has problems of his own.
Frank, Debbie's father, has grieved for thirty years and is still fragile. Then
there's the mysterious Ellen, who seems to know a lot more than she is telling.
And who is the person in the red car, and where are the notes on distinctive
pink paper coming from?
Elisabeth Carpenter has captured the knack of releasing
information a little at a time to maintain the tension level and makes good use
of family life to create distractions at key moments. She's also good at
background. The bookshop where Anna works, the beach at Lytham St Anne's, the
apartment complex and the landscape in Tenerife all give the novel plenty of
local colour, and there's enough detail in 1986 chapters to bring the era to
life.
Domestic noir is a burgeoning sub-genre, and Carpenter is
a new author to watch.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick
Elisabeth Carpenter
lives in Preston with her family. She completed a BA in English Literature and
Language with the Open University in 2008. Elisabeth was awarded a Northern
Writers’ New Fiction award and was longlisted for Yeovil Literary Prize (2015
and 2016) and the MsLexia Women’s Novel award (2015). She loves living in the
north of England and sets most of her stories in the area, including the novel
she is writing at the moment. She currently works as a book keeper.
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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