Books

Both gruesome and thrilling, Karin Slaughter’s latest crime novel The Silent Wife takes place over two sets of investigations, eight years apart.

Setting the scene in small-town Georgia, USA, a college student is attacked. A seemingly solitary incident at first, local police soon find themselves outmanoeuvred as they struggle to get ahead of a fast-moving predator unlike anything seen before in their county. Readers watch events unfold both in real time, and through the lens of Georgia Bureau detectives, urged to reopen the case eight years later as fresh evidence comes to light.

My praise for this novel comes with a caution; this may be the first book I have read that I consider worthy of a content warning. Depictions of the violent sexual crimes committed by the killer were graphic, and at times felt gratuitous. Upon finishing the story I read the author’s note, wherein Slaughter acknowledges and addresses her deliberate approach. In her own words, Slaughter says “I decided to write frankly about violence against women. I felt it was important to openly describe what that violence actually looks like, and to explore the long-lasting effects of trauma in as realistic a way as possible.”

I realised the writing was confronting because I was used to reading and hearing about crimes through a soft veil of euphemisms and ‘decency’. With this new perspective, I came to appreciate Slaughter’s decidedly unadorned storytelling.

Slaughter writes succinctly, crafting complex, flawed, and believably human lead characters in a clear and unromantic way. There is just enough personal detail and backstory to the characters to complement the key storyline without lurid expositions. My impression is that this book would appeal to a wide audience. Slaughter has a keen sense of pacing and balance of suspense versus payoff.

The Silent Wife stands alone successfully; I did not suspect during reading that I was missing any details or context, despite this novel being the latest in a series involving repeat characters. While this is my first foray into Karin Slaughter’s writing, I can say with certainty that I am a new fan, and I look forward to discovering more of her work.

My bookshelves sag with the weight of Neruda, Milligan, McGough, Betjeman, Rexroth, and Larkin but I have never reviewed a poetry book. Until now.

Not for me the dry analytic dissection of enjambment, onomatopoeia, or iambic pentameter, whatever they may be.

Poetry is probably the most private of reading. I came across Armitage not via his poetry but via his wildly crafted, dry-humoured book All Points North about his time in Manchester with social services. Armitage was born in Yorkshire, but I forgive him for that.

Now, Poet Laureate Armitage has published another book of country poems that evoke farmyards, birds on the wire, sleet on the face when crossing Mam Tor (Mother Hill in Derbyshire), and the smell of hollyhocks on the wind. They are so resplendent with imagery that I recall weekend rambles in Derbyshire as a 14-year-old with such clarity and dislike being woken from my reverie. I learned the names of the birds on the wing – starlings, robins, blue tits, and magpies, and now, so far from the motherland, I retreat into Armitage’s images so the memories will never fade.

Evening is one example. “One day you’ll learn the names of the trees. You fork left under the ridge, pick up the bridleway between two streams. Here is Wool Clough. Here is Royal Edge”.

And, in October, “All day trimming branches and leaves, the homeowner sweeping the summer into a green heap; all evening minding the flames, inhaling the incense of smouldering laurel and pine”.

In the chapter titled Bringing it all Back Home, the author’s humour comes to the fore when he discovers that there is a Simon Armitage Trail in his village. Buying a false wig and beard, he joins the guided tour only to find, disappointingly, that it’s only two elderly ladies and three day-trippers. Keen to catch the ferret juggling at midday in Malham Cove, one of the day-trippers asks, “how long does this take?” as they don’t want to miss the bus. Argh! Fame, such a fickle mistress.