‘Speak of the Devil’ by Rose Wilding

Published by Baskerville,
22 June 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-39980498-1

There’s no doubt at all that Jamie Spellman had it coming. When seven women gather in a shabby hotel room and find his severed head, not one of them is surprised, or regretful.

The opening scene of this powerful novel is shocking, and as the women’s stories unfold it becomes plain that what has happened was inevitable. The question is, which of the seven was responsible? Detective Inspector Nova Stokoe is tasked with investigating, and what she unearths says even more about Jamie than it does about the suspects.

The women’s lives are linked in various ways, not only by Jamie. Rose Wilding has balanced a complex structure with a richly realized cast of characters to create a novel which transcends the police procedural genre it loosely fits into. It’s hard to believe that this is a debut; it’s accomplished, well balanced and smart.

It’s the characters who bring the intricate scenario to life, each one rounded, detailed, and above all a living, breathing human being. She weaves together not only the seven women but other people in their lives, and above all Jamie himself, into a multi-faceted tale of love and loathing, deceit, betrayal and well-deserved retribution.

Jamie emerges as a manipulator, selfish, egocentric, narcissistic, and of course utterly charming when he chooses to be. He uses people for his own ends, and drops or abuses them when they are no long of use to him. He abandons conflicted Maureen, his substitute mother; keeps credulous Olive on a string for sex; relies on caring Sadia for a comfortable home life; uses unstable Sarah and neglected Josie to provide him with children; steals brilliant Ana’s research to gain plaudits at work. As a student he raped and abused Kaysha; she saw through him right away, and it’s she who draws the seven women together to plot revenge.

When that payback goes to extremes, Nova finds herself torn between her job and the pursuit of real justice – and that adds the final layer to a novel which asks the question at the heart of the best crime fiction: will right triumph? And that is the question which keeps the reader enthralled. Any one of the women could have committed the murder – but what will Nova do is she finds out which it was? Read it and find out; you’ll weep, and cheer, as I did.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Rose Wilding is a, working-class writer from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. She has an MA in creative writing from The University of Manchester, where she was mentored by Jeanette Winterson. Speak of the Devil is her first novel.

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 in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.