Library Limelights 300

 It seems very fitting to begin the New Year with a shiny new series of posts to come. Above you will see a tab for the Index to all 2022 books that came and went my way. Also, something new: "Best Quotes from 2022," many either tongue in cheek or that simply struck my fancy.

Karin Slaughter. Girl, Forgotten. Ebook download from TPL. New York: HarperCollins, 2022.

What was forgotten was that Brenda was not greatly happy with the previous Slaughter she'd read (The Silent Wife, LL237) in 2020. I must have been distracted by the beguiling cat photos the author posts on Facebook. Add to that, I've missed the prequel to Girl, Forgotten, called Pieces of Her (that I learn was the basis of a TV series). Well, now that this landed on my shelf, let's have a go at it.

Andrea Oliver is a thirty-year-old finishing the U.S. Marshals (USMS) program. She brought some heavy baggage along: her mother Laura has serious history with dangerous people; because of it, Laura and Andrea had been put through the witness protection program (WitSec, handled by the USMS). Marshal Mike (no surname?) is their "minder"; he and Andrea have an on-again, off-again romance. Andrea's first assignment is federal judge protection; she meets her partner Leonard "Catfish" Bible in a small Delaware beach town, residence of elderly Judge Esther Vaughn. Bible allegedly knows nothing of Andrea's background.

We definitely have a two-for here. The U.S. Marshals have a mandate to protect, not to investigate. But: Andrea's Uncle Jasper, a California senator, pulled her aside on her graduation day and issued a second task—find out who savagely attacked the judge's pregnant daughter Emily forty years ago. A serial killer called Nick Harp, now imprisoned, is the suspect; it's believed he secretly fathered Emily's baby (who survived the attack although Emily didn't). The baby Judith was raised by Judge Esther. Nick Harp, real name Clayton Morrow, happens to be Andrea's father as well—clearly, mom Laura had some 'splaining to do, but it evidently took place in Pieces of Her. Andrea is juggling some heavy weight for a newbie marshal; she cannot tell anyone about this mission.

You think it's complicated already? Emily's backstory unveils another group of characters, her four good friends (including Clayton Morrow), a conniving teacher, and the party where no one remembers a sexual assault. Emily is the "forgotten" girl, the seventeen-year-old whose pregnancy brought shame and slander from her peers, and denial, more or less, from her parents. The girl sets out to learn who raped her. In present life Andrea and Bible uncover a sleazy cult on an organic farm. The judge's house goes up in flames. An exciting, challenging plot happily reinstates Slaughter in my good books. The novel also contains a thoughtful examination of difficult family relationships and failings. And mercifully, no extraneous gore!

Andrea's Sphere

▪ Laura had kept it hidden for thirty-one years that Andrea's biological father was a psychosomatic cult leader bent on mass murder. (12)

▪ "You're both marshals?" Stilton seemed dubious, probably because Bible looked like a semi-retired skateboarder and Andrea like she had found her pants in a boys' clothing bin at Costco. (58)

▪ Judith wasn't a hobbyist or a crafter. She was an artist whose work brought to mind Kurt Schwitters and Man Ray. (109)

▪ This girl had been starved into a skeleton and tagged like a farm animal. (196-7)

▪ A bunch of lost, hopeless young women looking for meaning. A couple of dirty old men willing to supply it at cost. (222)

▪ "I did not earn a peaceful death. I do not deserve it." (392)

▪ "You can't strategize with a psychopath. They're always gonna come at you from a different angle." (397)

Emily's Sphere

▪ Weirdly, Clay was the only one who had two stable, loving adults in his life. (79)

▪ No matter the snarky tone of Ricky's witness statement, they had been best friends for the majority of Emily's life. (89)

▪ "No one will respect you now. Do you understand that?" (138)

▪ No matter what her mother and father said, someone had hurt her. (184)

▪ "Look it up in the dictionary, you dumb cunt." He sat down at his desk. "It means I'm not the father." (194)

▪ "She was obsessed with trying to find out who did it. She called it her Columbo investigation." (328)

▪ "You are so terrified of what people will think of you," Emily said. "That's why you stay with Dad." (381)

▪ "He turned me into nothing. I am ruined because of him." (426)

Chris Brookmyre. The Cliff House. UK: Little, Brown, 2022.

Seven women on an isolated island—eight including Lauren, the owner/host of the exclusive resort―and something scary happens, cutting off communication with the outside world. Familiar-sounding? Jen Dunne invited six friends to an expensive hen party weekend, each of them knowing few of the others, but each harbouring some sort of shameful or dramatic secret. Jen is a successful entrepreneur engaged to marry Zaki Hussain, about whom she's had recent doubts. His sister Samira is one of the invitees. It's not Jen's first go-round; we are talking forty-year-old women for the most part. Jen's first husband Jason vanished and has been legally declared dead; his sister Beattie is another party invitee (who doesn't believe the stories that later circulated of Jason's criminal activities).

Once on the island, they soon gather at the lodge's bar, getting to know each other. Hired chef Joaquin is preparing dinner, having created a dazzling choice of drinks for them. Michelle is an international pop star; she's resented by guitarist Helena who had been turfed out of her band. Nicolette is a dedicated fashionista; Kennedy is something of an outlier, being tennis coach to several of the women, trusted for her empathy and good sense. Nearly all of them have had husband or boyfriend trouble. Samira walks out after callously insulting Nicolette. Then when Michelle goes to check on dinner prep, her scream electrifies everyone. The chef lies on the kitchen floor, his throat cut.

No way to reach the outside world: the landline has been cut and someone has control of their internet and email. Each receives the same message, including Lauren, the lodge owner: "The Reaper" wants the right woman to confess and compensate for her past damage done to "him." It's a you-know-who-you-are taunt. Quite a commotion commences but they agree they must get off the island somehow ... but how? Lauren's boat is gone. And they must find the absent Samira. Kennedy agrees to hold the fort—after they are sure a stranger is not hiding in the building―pairing the others to search different directions. A second message shows a captive Samira with a loose noose around her neck, tied to a chair on a block of ice. It's clear that as the ice melts, the noose tightens. Their priority is now to find the victim, believing she's concealed somewhere on the island.

In fear and horror, away they go to search: Jen and Beattie; Helena and Michelle; Lauren and Nicolette. A glimpse of a masked man arriving on a boat, later on a quadruped bike, increases their panic. Naturally, every woman is wondering am I the one? Gradually, they begin to share confidences and confessions with their partner, confronting their guilt—some seem trivial; others are astonishing. In fact, Brookmyre turns surprises so fast your head might spin. He hopscotches from one woman to another to drive the narrative, which may feel like slow character development, but it works. I'm not conveying the subtlety with which the author explores each mind and interaction. Truly creative in plot and structure, The Cliff House is a mystery masterpiece.

SAMIRA

▪ "It's as well you don't have kids then, because they wouldn't stand a chance if they were being raised by a fucking stupid cow." (78)

JEN

▪ She wasn't putting her cards on the table unless everyone else did. (108)

▪ Everybody was searching for a reason to believe the sinner was somebody else. (110)

▪ It was her first act of complicity in covering up her own abuse, but far from her last. (152)

▪ It was hard to stomach Beattie's unwavering faith in the goodness of her saintly brother, but Jen knew it was wrong to hate her for it. (152)

▪ "It's not legal to record someone without their permission, Beattie." (271)

MICHELLE

▪ "What I'm saying is that I took Helena on a journey she'd never have dared to go on herself. But I could only carry her so far." (60)

▪ "Samira, I mean? Might she have taken the boat in some drunken huffy act of recklessness?" (95)

▪ "Well said, Helena. I was wondering just how long it would take for you to decide this was my fault." (109)

▪ Michelle had been paranoid about everything since the video leak. (169)

LAUREN

▪ The Reaper had not specified what was meant by reparation, and he had already killed one person tonight. But while that remained unknown, what was starkly clear was the price Samira would pay if nobody stepped up. (106)

▪ "I've been receiving death threats." (207)

▪ "The old bitch knew I would come here if they cut the phone lines." (208)

▪ "I'm the prey. Don't you get it? Forget all that talk about reparation. These people want to fucking kill me." (208)

BEATTIE

▪ It sounded like she was being deliberately disheartening, like it would please the old cow if Jen's hen weekend led to the death of her future sister-in-law. (114)

▪ Then she drove off, leaving Beattie to deal with a world that was about to crumble all around her, the coming nightmare of Jason being torn apart piece by piece when he wasn't there to defend himself. (185)

▪ "I want to know what happened to Jason. You're going to tell me this truth you're 'sparing' me from." (214)

▪ This had been a night of shocks and revelations, but it had also been a night of illusions and deceptions. Above all it had been a night that demonstrated the perils of believing things simply because you wished them to be true. (315-6)

KENNEDY

▪ "Fuck you," Kennedy retorted. "My real name is Fiona Gilmour, but maybe I've got reasons for not wanting to be Fiona Gilmour." (111)

▪ There was no refuge here, no security. She would be no safer than anyone else. (181)

▪ She wondered what the others would think of her inability to get past the Reaper's firewall if they knew about some of her past exploits; exploits being the operative word. (265)

▪ Kennedy was wrong about almost everything. And the worst thing she was wrong about was who she had trusted. (308)

HELENA

▪ The man in Michelle's sex tape had never been identified, his face never appearing. (90)

▪ "So it's not merely a question of who might we each have pissed off. It's who among us pissed off somebody with sufficient money and clout." (109)

▪ When your husband leaves you for a younger woman, you need to find a form of therapy. (160)

▪ Michelle flashed her a huge grin, full of relief, gratitude and something that could have been affection. Helena didn't immediately identify it as such because she was reluctant to admit what it was. (228)

NICOLETTE

▪ She knew she had annoyed Jen by accusing Zaki's sister, so she was ready for the retaliation. (96)

▪ "We need to remember what the Reaper wrote," Nicolette said. "One of us is not who she claims to be." (110)

▪ But Nicolette was already trapped. And the hardest part was that to spring Lauren's would be to slam the jaws shut forever on her own. (208)

▪ "I feel this anger about everything that was stolen from me, the life I was supposed to have, and I take it out on people I've never met." (217)