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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