Rating: 5/5
Review:
An excellent read
I agree with the many hundreds of people who have enjoyed
this book: it is thoughtful, engaging and exceptionally well written.
I won't go over the plot in detail again; briefly, this is
set in the hot summer drought of 1976 in an unnamed small town near Nottingham,
where one of the residents of a "respectable" avenue goes
missing. The fallout from her
disappearance exposes some terrible secrets which slowly emerge, partly because
two ten-year-old girls investigate in their naïve way.
It is a gripping story, but what makes it special is both
Joanna Cannon's exceptionally good writing and her fine insight into her
characters. She captures beautifully the
way in which secrets, often hidden by shame, lurk beneath a veneer of
"niceness" and how this can manifest itself in hatred, bullying and
bigotry. Cannon is especially good on
the workings of a herd mentality, how people will ignore evidence as long as
what they believe fits in with the crowd and how this can lead to manipulation
and sometimes appalling consequences.
Although this is very convincingly set 40 years ago, the messages remain
very apposite.
In short, I thought this was excellent. It is readable and intelligent, and I can
recommend it very warmly. (I can also
warmly recommend Cannon's second novel, Three Things About Elsie.)
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