Review: THE KILLER NEXT DOOR

The Killer Next Door

by Alex Marwood

Trade Paperback

Penguin (October 28, 2014)

Alex Marwood’s first book, The Wicked Girls (which won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original), was one of my favorite novels of 2013. Shifting back and forth in time, it focused on two women who killed a child together when they were both eleven years old, grew up in separate prisons, and haven’t seen each other since. As adults with new identities and very different lives, they come together again with disastrous consequences. The Wicked Girls is dark and probing, an exquisite psychological suspense novel.  

The Killer Next Door, Marwood’s second novel, is a different sort of crime story, creepy and sometimes grotesquely comic, but no less absorbing. The reader learns from the opening pages that the police are investigating the discovery of body parts in a decrepit South London rooming house and that a missing resident named Collette is believed to be a victim—but not the only one. The story then moves back in time to reveal what led up to this point.

Collette, in her thirties, is on the run after witnessing a murder. Using a fake name (she is actually Lisa Dunne) and carrying a bag of cash that she never lets out of her sight, she returns to England after years abroad to see her dying mother. She takes refuge in the anonymity of the rooming house, although it means putting up with a repugnant, lecherous landlord, and moves into the quarters vacated by a young woman who has mysteriously vanished.  The other females in residence are Cher, a teenage runaway who survives through petty theft, and Vesta, the independent but motherly woman in her sixties who occupies a basement flat. The male tenants are Hossein, a handsome Iranian seeking political asylum, and two nondescript bachelors named Thomas and Gerard. 

One of the men is a serial killer who calls himself The Lover. He keeps his victims’ corpses in his flat as quiet companions until they begin to produce an odor that can’t be covered up with air freshener. Then he dismembers the bodies and disposes of the pieces around the house and down the toilets. The place is plagued with backed-up drains and a stench accentuated by the oppressive heat of summer. When Collette moves in, The Lover is looking for a fresh victim.

The secretive tenants tend to keep to themselves, but one hot night an accident brings them together and sets in motion a continually surprising string of events.

Marwood has the same merciless eye and penetrating insight into human behavior that distinguishes Ruth Rendell’s writing. Although the men are less well realized, the three women are vividly drawn and memorable. 

This novel is not for the easily repulsed, and at times the descriptions of disgusting sights, smells, and actions seem repetitive. Yet—again like Rendell—Marwood finds a macabre humor in all these goings-on. 

In the final pages, Marwood refrains from escalating the sense of dread into a predictable bloodbath and instead takes a turn that leads to a totally satisfying conclusion. Despite the events leading up to it, the ending allows the reader to close the book with a smile and lingering thoughts about the meaning of friendship and family.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Exciting World of Research

This is what research for a novel looks like.

My new protagonist, Wren Morrow, is a wildlife photographer whose photos will be included in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. (No, the folks at the Smithsonian know nothing of this.)

So I went to take a look at how the current Wildnerness Forever exhibit is displayed. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Wildnerness Act, the exhibit features juried photos of America's wild places and wildlife taken by pros, amateurs, and students -- all so amazing that you would never be able to tell the professional shots from those captured by teenagers.

I also have a major scene set in the area just outside the second floor restrooms at the museum, down the winding hallway from the photo exhibit.

After that fateful encounter (you'll remember this detail when you read the book, right?), Wren takes a moment in the women's restroom to pull herself together. Pale green is so soothing. (Look at how clean this place is! Not a germ in sight! I do love the Smithsonian.)

I had to notice what she would see in the hallway on her way to and from the restroom:

And what she would see out the window on Constitution Avenue:

Also what she would see if she looked beyond the stuffed elephant in the rotunda:

I made written notes on things I already knew but wanted to be doubly sure of -- the floor coverings in heavily trafficked areas, for example.

Exciting, huh? But wait till you read the scene. I promise it will be exciting.

What to Expect When You're Having a Book

(First published on Poe's Deadly Daughters)

Having a book is a life-changing event that no one should approach lightly, but it will be an easier and more joyous experience if you know what to expect every step of the way. Here, in condensed form, are a few pointers that I hope will be helpful.

Conception

 

You are madly, passionately in love with The Idea. It consumes you, heart and soul, mind and body. You want to move in with The Idea and share every second of every day with it.

Together the two of you are going to make a baby more beautiful and brilliant than any the world has ever seen. 

First Trimester

 

It’s real. At the moment it is little more than a blob on the screen, but you feel it growing, blooming, becoming something substantial that will change your life forever.

Yes, you have those queasy mornings when the niggling doubts creep in as you face the day, and those middle of the night, staring at the ceiling moments when a voice in your head whispers: What the heck am I doing? I can’t handle this! I’m going to fail, I’m going to produce a baby so ugly that people will avert their eyes and ask each other how it’s possible that such a hideous creature has been inflicted upon the world.

But most of the time you’re still excited, filled with anticipation. You start a list of possible names and dismiss with a weak smile the dreadful monikers suggested by family and friends. Your baby must have a special name, evocative and memorable.

Second Tri-mester

 

Of course you still love your baby. But now and then you don’t like it. The first kick in the gut was fun. Those that have followed, not so much. You don’t enjoy lying awake at night, worrying, while the baby acts up. You despair of finding a way to make it settle down.

And it’s getting bigger and bigger. Huge. Gigantic. Enormous. It’s not supposed to be this big, is it? But what can you do about it now?

The baby has taken over your life. You can’t even think of anything else. But this is what you wanted, isn’t it? 

Well, isn’t it?

Third Tri-mester

 

WILL THIS NEVER END?? You don’t care anymore what the blasted baby looks like. You don’t care whether anyone will love it. You’re not even sure you will love it. Just please, dear God in heaven, let this be over soon. 

Post-partum

 

Oh, the agony, the wrench of separation. Your baby is no longer a part of you. It’s out in the world now, where any idiot is free to take a look and pronounce it the ugliest thing they’ve ever seen. You can glory in the compliments but you can’t shield your baby from the snarky comments and you can’t force indifferent people to pay attention to it. Your baby, like each of us, is alone in the world and will stand or fall on its own merits.

Whether weeping or smiling, you must turn away, point yourself forward... toward the next Idea that’s waiting to seduce you.

What's in a nickname?

When I was a kid, nobody called me Sandy. I was Sandra, the shy girl in glasses, to everybody.

Now my husband, best friends, and a lot of other mystery writers call me Sandy. Whether you address me as Sandra or Sandy is an indicator of something, but I’m not sure what. I do know that I feel friendlier to people who call me by the nickname. If you don’t know me well, don’t like me, or simply want to keep some distance between us, call me Sandra.  

I feel lucky that I’ve never been burdened with a silly or embarrassing nickname, but at the same time I think the lack of one says something unflattering about me. People who collect a bunch of cute and funny nicknames throughout their lives tend to be the popular, gregarious sort, the type everybody wants to befriend. So while I might roll my eyes at hearing grownups addressed as Bunny or whatever, I feel a tinge of envy too.

I think about nicknames a lot because, as a writer, I regularly have the power to name a whole gaggle of people for a new book. The majority of real people seem to have nicknames—or diminutives of their given names—but giving a character more than one label is verboten, because readers become confused if a guy is John on one page and Bubba on another and Jack on yet another. If I’m going to use a diminutive or nickname, that’s it. I may mention the character’s “real” name in passing, but I have to stick with the chosen moniker for the sake of readers.

Nicknames can tell us more about a person, or a character, than what’s on a birth certificate, so I’m drawn to them and would love to use more. Humans all over the planet have a penchant for nicknames, whether they’re given in affection, for convenience, or to show contempt and produce embarrassment. We start as kids on the playground, hurling insulting nicknames at each other or whispering them behind our poor victims’ backs, always believing we’re being terribly original and cutting. Bullies perfect the art of dreaming up humiliating nicknames to make life miserable for kids who are the slightest bit different from the local ideal. Teachers, whether they’re sexy young women or sour old men, are not exempt, although they will seldom be addressed face to face with the sobriquets their students have bestowed on them.

Just as we can’t resist giving nasty nicknames to people we detest or fear, we shower sweet names on our loved ones. Babies are addressed as Precious and Sweetums and Cupcake and Cutie Pie and Little Man and Princess, ad nauseum. Although we might give our pets nicknames in lieu of formal names to begin with, we always pile on more, and the things owners call their beloved cats and dogs in private probably shouldn’t be repeated out of respect for the animals’ dignity. (Our cats Emma and Gabriel have perfectly nice names, but I usually call them Sweetie or Sugar.)

Do you have a nickname? Do different people have different nicknames for you? What do their choices say about your relationships with them?

What do you call your pets when no one is around to hear?

Review: THE SECRET PLACE

  

The Secret Place 

by Tana French

Viking (September 2014)

I’ll admit I groaned when I learned that Tana French’s fifth Dublin Murder Squad novel centered around teenage girls at a private school. The intense emotional lives of adolescent females have attracted the interest of a lot of writers lately, and few seem to have anything new to say about the cliques, the secrets, the sexual fantasies, the stupid behavior that arises from the ignorance and arrogance of the young. But this was Tana French, who hasn’t bored me yet. So of course I read The Secret Place.

I wasn’t disappointed. While French’s teens can be as obnoxious and pathetic as any others, they are also dangerous. Some of them may know more than they’re telling about a murder on school grounds. One of them may be the killer.

Holly Mackey, the 16-year-old daughter of Detective Frank Mackey (the protagonist in Faithful Place) and a student at St. Kilda’s School, stirs fresh interest in a stalled investigation when she brings potential new evidence to Detective Stephen Moran of the cold case squad. A year before, a popular boy named Chris Harper, who attended a nearby boys’ school, was found dead in a field at St. Kilda’s. Police were unable to solve the crime. Now Holly brings Moran a photo of the dead boy she found pinned to a notice board at school. Glued to the photo is a message composed of print cut from a magazine: I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.

Moran, languishing in a police department backwater, seizes the opportunity to get in on a major homicide case. He takes the card to Detective Antoinette Conway, lead investigator in the Harper murder. She doesn’t like Moran, she doesn’t like being reminded that she failed to solve the case, but he’s willing and handy, so she takes him along on a visit to St. Kilda’s to ferret out the girl who posted the photo.

Both detectives are inner city Dubliners and fiercely ambitious, but in other ways they’re polar opposites. Moran is dazzled by the beautiful old school buildings and lavish grounds. Conway despises all of it and the class distinctions it represents, and wishes she could toss a petrol bomb at the idyllic scene. Conway is a hard-charger in interviews, while Moran plays good cop and tries to lull people into revealing what they know. Despite their prickly relationship, though, they work well together, promptly focusing on two rival cliques—one made up of Holly Mackey and her roommates—who had ties to Chris Harper. All the girls seem to be hiding things from the police, and more than one looks like a reasonable murder suspect. Throughout a long day of questioning the students, the St. Kilda’s nuns and its secular headmistress hover, determined to protect the school from further negative fallout, and Detective Frank Mackey steps in to protect his own daughter, even if it means leaving a murder unsolved.

The present-day investigation scenes alternate with flashbacks that follow the girls through the year preceding Chris Harper’s murder. French’s depiction of teenage behavior is pitch-perfect as she slowly reveals the truth about the boy whom “everybody loved” and the girls whose lives he touched. Most mystery readers try to identify the killer in advance, but they’re not likely to succeed this time. The one element that puzzled me, and seemed superfluous, was a minor touch of woo-woo that never led anywhere.

As always, French’s prose is superb, and her vivid descriptions make the most common of stock characters seem fresh. Upon meeting Miss McKenna, the headmistress, Stephen Moran observes: “That voice: like Maggie Thatcher turned Irish, shoulder-barging the world into its place with no room for argument. Made me feel like I should apologize quick, if I could work out what for.” When two girls argue, French writes: “The more furious Joanne gets, the more bits of her stick out—elbows, tits, arse.”

In an interview supplied by the publisher, French says she set The Secret Place in a small private school because the cloistered atmosphere intensifies the emotional turmoil of adolescence: “It’s isolated from the outside world, so it heightens the feeling that only your private world is real, and that everything that happens in that world is immense and crucial. That way of thinking is seductive, but it’s also dangerous.”

French draws interesting parallels between her tough female cop, Antoinette Conway, and the teenagers in the novel. “I don’t think Conway’s real problem with the Murder Squad is that she’s a woman. I think it’s that she’s still struggling with the same question that dogs the teenagers and Stephen: who gets to define you? Conway refuses to budge an inch to adapt to the Murder Squad; she’s like a teenager refusing to conform to peer pressure, and the Squad—which is a tight-knit, isolated world not that different from St. Kilda’s—reacts with the same ferocity as a group of teenagers would.”

Each of French’s novels so far has focused on a different member of the Dublin Murder Squad. Her next book, though, will feature Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran working as partners again, with Conway narrating the story. These characters are good together, and another pairing will be welcome.

The publisher provided a free hardcover copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.