Patrick McGuinness - Throw Me To The Wolves

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstandingly good

I thought that Throw Me To The Wolves was outstandingly good. It’s ostensibly a crime novel, in that it is centred around two police officers investigating the murder of a teenage girl in a Kent town, but it is really a profound book about childhood, class, school, difference and the way people respond to it, herd mentality and many other things.

The book is narrated by Ander, an Anglo-Dutch police officer who, with his partner Gary, investigates the murder in which an old teacher of his at a posh local school is the prime suspect. Ander is a quiet, thoughtful, reflective man and Gary has his own, differently expressed insights. There is a lot of reflection on all sorts of matters, all of it insightful, acutely observed and beautifully expressed. I think it is significant that we don’t learn the full names and ranks of the two officers (who are beautifully painted) until very late in the book, not because they form any kind of a “twist,” but because the book is about so much more than them.

As the case progresses, parallels with Christopher Jeffries in Bristol emerge (but are not overtly mentioned) and we get an exceptionally intelligent analysis of what are often just clichés in a crime novel: scurrilous press behaviour, exploitative people lying for attention, self-preservation or money, appalling behaviour on social media and so on. It is almost poetic at times and full of real insight and understanding. I highlighted dozens of pithy insights, witty thoughts and lovely passages. Here are a couple of brief ones to give you a flavour:

“He has a scholarship, so falls exactly into that zone - intellectually superior, socially inferior – that makes the English upper-middle-class uneasy.”

Or, of the murdered girl, “Her Twitter account is still there, and hundreds of people have already DM’d her to tell her how sorry they are that she’s dead.”

I found this an excellent, wholly involving read which is profound, thought-provoking and beautifully written. Very warmly recommended.