The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood: a thought-provoking and tense crime novel

Increasingly I find myself drawn to crime fiction, and a particular type above any other: thoughtful, psychological fiction about crime and its aftermath rather than whodunnits. (That's not to say that I don't enjoy a good Jo Nesbo type page-turner...those have their place - generally at the end of a school term when I'm so tired the book virtually needs to turn its own pages!). Alex Marwood's recent The Wicked Girls fits my new crime brief perfectly; it's a multi-layered narrative about the impact of crime on criminals and specifically on criminals who are children.
The Wicked Girls has two storylines: one traces a single day in the life of two young girls, Bel and Jade, who commit a terrible crime. We know from the beginning that these two will kill another girl, but it's only as the story unfolds that we learn how and - if it's possible - why.
Bel and Jade meet for the first time on the day they become criminals. From very different social classes, the two girls are nonetheless both abandoned by their parents. The scruffy, notorious Jade intrigues prim but hard Bel, and vice versa. Alex Marwood's skill is in encouraging us to pity both these unloveable girls who together are drawn into a terrible act which profoundly damages them both.
The other strand of the novel - and the one which dominates the plot - follows a serial killer in a coastal town.  (To me the town with its decaying funfair and depressing aura felt like Margate, and I'd be interested to know if Marwood had this in mind when she created the setting). The serial killer is targeting young women, and local cleaner Amber is unlucky enough to find two of the bodies.
Of course these stories are connected, and I won't spoil anything by revealing how, but in many ways that isn't the point of this book. The identity of the serial killer isn't that surprising either, but that too is far from the point. The novel really explores our perception and treatment of child criminals, and forces the reader to question her attitudes to crime and punishment. The James Bulger case hangs over this novel - Thomson and Venables are explicitly mentioned at points as a counterpoint to Jade and Bel, and I found it really interesting to consider the role gender plays. Are Bel and Jade treated differently because they are girls?
The novel races to a gripping climax on a seaside pier - a wonderfully creepy setting, made even more so by the inclusion of a hall of waxworks. The adult Bel and Jade are forced to confront waxworks of their childhood criminal selves, frozen forever at the moment of their wrongdoing. This very clever device provokes the reader to consider whether a criminal should be frozen by their crime forever. Can we or should we ever separate Thomson and Venables from those primary school photos? What about Ian Brady? Would it, as I read in the press this week, actually diminish Brady's power to see him fading year by year? It's the sign of a crime novel going beyond the genre that The Wicked Girls encourages this kind of thinking. And doesn't offer an easy answer.
The Wicked Girls is Alex Marwood's first novel, and I'm certainly looking forward to its followup. Marwood was a journalist before becoming a full-time author, and some of the most enjoyable light-hearted moments in the book come from the depiction of the hard-nosed journalists covering the serial killer case. The novel overall really benefited from a good balance in terms of the plotlines: the dual narrative allows the author to include tension, pathos and humour, alongside some interesting social commentary on the inhabitants of the seaside town.
In sum, The Wicked Girls is a novel about crime. Compelling and intriguing, it'll stay with you after you've turned the last page.

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

I was interested to learn that this fantasy novel was marketed as a YA offering in the US; in fact, the author's own website declares it as a YA text. But in the UK it's not, and seems to be positioned for a commercial literary fiction market. After reading it I still can't decide what the "right" audience for this fantasy romance is. YA or not YA?

The story follows Karou, a blue-haired and mysterious seventeen-year-old art student in Prague. Karou, however, lives a double life. Some days she goes to life drawing class and drinks coffee in her favourite ghoulish cafe with her friend Zuzana. Other days, she travels the world running errands for a teeth-collecting demon called Brimstone, who has raised her from her birth.

But Karou's biggest difficulty is that she doesn't know who she is. Brimstone will tell her nothing of her origins, and his chimaera helpers are sympathetic, but ultimately they, too, hide Karou's background from her. As the pages turn, Karou and the reader learn about her past and the world of Elsewhere that lies behind various portals in Marrakesh, Paris and Prague.

The novel developed quite differently to what I expected. At first I was a bit anxious: lots of names with xs and zs in them, half-human creatures with magical powers - it all felt a bit contrived. But when the plot surrounding Karou's true identity became intertwined with a quite moving love story I was hooked.

The settings Taylor uses - both real and Elsewhere - are beautifully evoked. Her prose is lush and vivid, although I'm not sure the dialogue always works as well as the description. Later in the book, split narrative is used effectively to give us two different perspectives on events. And I must mention the creation myths Taylor weaves into her novel. Although we aren't sure as readers whether or not to believe these myths, they are compellingly realised.

All in all, I wholeheartedly enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which is the first in a planned trilogy, with the next installment due soon. I'll certainly be buying the followup, particularly after the gripping conclusion to the first novel.

And on reflection, I think the novel is possibly a true example of a cross-over text. I can see teenagers and adult readers enjoying this and I'm not sure that placing it in a different section of the bookshop makes any difference to that.

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kindling

I'm stuck in the house waiting for my replacement kindle to be delivered, which got me to thinking about e-readers in general. It's definitely a big talking point in the book world at the moment and I think e-readers will only get more influential as time goes on.

I'll start by confessing to being a relatively early adopter of and evangelist for the kindle. My old kindle 3 was a gift last February from my husband and I loved it. I still do - until it broke last week while I was on holiday. More of that later though.

What did I love? The screen and its matte paperiness. The little Casio keyboard esque typepad with the round clicky buttons. The easy interface with the kindle store. The massive storage capacity. And of course I loved our holidays together. No book-induced luggage weighin panic. Buying books on holiday when I ran out. A dream come true.

The storage capacity is an important one. I live in a small terraced house, and currently books are everywhere. Beside the sofa. In a teetering pile on my bedside table. Under the spare bed. In bags in the attic. In 3 bookshelves. On chairs in the dining room. On the kitchen counter (for the cookbook addiction). So I loved the idea that I could reduce the bookspill in my house. To be honest, I think that's why my husband bought me it.

My kindle 3 and I were happy together. I loved reading it in bed after I bought an expensive amazon cover with a builtin light. But kindle didn't replace printed books. First off - and I know this is a real issue in publishing - was the cost of ebooks. I really value books. I don't disregard the cost of editing, marketing, and publishing great books. But I do think a physical book should cost more than a download. Perhaps we've got too used to cheap books (hello, end of the Net Book Agreement, which I can just about remember). But a readjustment of some.kind needs to take place.

Lately, I think it's me who's been adjusting a bit. I've realised that the convenience of the ebook might be worth paying £4.99 for. But I'd have to know I wanted it already to pay that. I think that's because if I take a chance on an ebook and I don't like it, there's not much I can do about it. I can't pass it on to someone else in the hope they might enjoy it, or give it to charity. I do like passing books around, whether I have or haven't liked them and I think that's a big loss if you exclusively kindle.

I also buy secondhand books loads, and of course that doesn't happen on the kindle. And some books have such beautiful cover art that I want to own them. So the bookdrift continues to accumulate.

On Monday I went to a really interesting readers' group meeting at Pan Macmillan with the author Carol Rifka Brunt. She very interestingly said that the library was her kindle - that's where she got books she didn't want to keep. I was really struck by this. I love my local library and am a keen borrower. (At the moment I've got a fine waiting to be paid so I've not been for a while, but I'll gloss over that.) I think for me the library's a bit different. Its usp is hardbacks. The request facility is what I go for - and the fact that I know if I'm not enjoying a book I can stop: no questions asked, no buyer's remorse.

At the bookgroup we were asked how many of us had ereaders. I was really surprised by the low number - I'd previously assumed they were at the.tipping point (cf Malcolm Gladwell). My dad has one. The secretaries at work all have them. I see them everywhere on the train. But this group of booklovers seemed slightly unconvinced. If I remember correctly, only one person said they did the majority of their reading on kindle. Maybe they aren't "for" bookworms. Maybe they're for more casual readers.

But back to the broken kindle. My beloved 3 developed heart failure. The screen blanked out, nasty lines appeared, and no amount of tlc would restore it. Amazon's best offer to me was a 20% discount on a new one. Frankly, I think this is poor. I spend lots of money with them; the kindle is broken through no fault of my own; it's only 18 months old. But they wouldn't budge.

So I'm left waiting in for a new one. Why did I buy it? Well - I'm hooked. I still love the papery screen. I still love reading it in bed. I really really love the 99p deals. I have loads of ebooks on it I haven't read yet and I don't fancy reading them on my phone. And, crucially, I'm going on holiday tomorrow. So, like an old lipstick or a bashed up biscuit, the kindle is in my handbag to stay.

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The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

I picked this book up partly on an impulse; I'd seen it picked out in a newspaper review supplement and noticed it had won the Old Peculiar Crime Novel award. I had it on my amazon wishlist for a bit and then happened to see it in the supermarket book section (shhh, I know it's bad, but it was £3.99 and I do shop at independents sometimes...).

I can only apologise for that terribly boring introduction - I'm still new to reviewing. Denise Mina's novel is much more interesting and deserves better!

It's a crime novel of sorts, set in Scotland but far from Rebus territory. The plot follows Alex Morrow, a DS investigating the brutal murder of a young woman in an old mansion house. This murder is obliquely connected to the suicide of a businessman in Sevenoaks. And that's where Mina's intriguing novel differentiates itself from standard crime fare. The connection is actually pretty clear from early in the book - it's the why that we are waiting to find out.

This makes for an interesting writing style. Mina drops crucial pieces of information in almost as asides; these plot points are often so casually inserted into the narrative as to require a quick re-read. As a reader it certainly kept me on my toes. I did find the book quite dark- for example, the details of the murder victim's death are so gruesome that they shock the police officers. Characters discuss their nature without providing specifics, and when the specifics are provided in a later scene at the police station, I felt a shiver of revulsion.

It became clear early on that I was reading one of a sequence of novels. Some details about Morrow's personal life are alluded to which must form the plot of earlier novels. It's to Mina's credit that I am interested to read other earlier stories featuring Alex Morrow, whose connections to criminal underworlds via her brother provided a layer of social commentary which deepened the scope of the novel.

Like many crime novels, this doesn't offer easy answers to some of the issues it raises: poverty, middle class neglect and corruption are explored through the various layers of the plot. Whilst the end was relatively bleak, some hope was offered, but not so much that it seemed corny or unbelievable.

All in all, an enjoyable, unusual and thought-provoking crime novel. Not a whodunnit to gobble up but a social exploration to absorb.

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into the ether

I wonder how many blogs start with something along the lines of "This is my first post. not sure if anyone is reading this."? I'll avoid that cliche and instead start with another: the potebtially self-important explanation.

Without sounding too Sarah Jessica Parker about it, I began to wonder why I didn't have a books blog at a fantastic readers' session at Pan Macmillan today. So many others seemed to have them, and I'd been considering it for a while. So on the train home I decided to take the plunge into cyberspace.

After a bit of thought I decided on rich tapestry as my blog name. The readers' panel got me thinking about why I enjoy reading so much. I'd like to think of myself as a gregarious kind of person but my favourite pastime is so solitary. And this afternoon I loved finding others who loved reading as much as me. I suppose I decided that reading (and as Atticus Finch would say, walking in someone else's shoes) is a way of being a thread in the rich tapestry of everyone else's experience of the world and being one of those threads is good enough for me. 

And then blogger had the domain name available, and the rest is...well, this, really. I mainly read commercial literary fiction and crime, but I'll give most things a go. I'm not a huge sci-fi or fantasy reader; that's not to say that I won't ever read a book in either of those genres, but it'd take a bit to get me to buy one. And I start, but rarely finish, non-fiction occasionally.

That's probably enough for now. I'll try to keep up my good intentions and review a recent read tomorrow.