A Child's Book of True Crime (Paperback)

This is a lot to cover in 230 pages. In order to tell Kate's story and provide the background of her affair with Thomas Marne, Hooper must give many flashbacks while simultaneously revealing Kate's life in the classroom, her trysts with Thomas, and the perceived threats to her life. The suspense depends on the reader's seeing parallels between Kate's affair and that of the 1983 victim, Ellie Siddells, so Kate, as narrator, must also provide information about Ellie's background and her murder. The animal story is yet another level of abstraction which the reader must correlate with Kate's life.

Though the novel is filled with dazzling descriptions and some insightful observations about childhood, the novel ultimately ends up being talky, its three stories overwhelming its characters and obscuring its focus. The narrator, Kate, dictates and talks about the action, instead of bringing it to life, and the reader never really gets to know her. Plot and suspense are the novel's focus at the beginning, while Kate's (undeveloped) character and her coming of age are the focus at the end, a problem which makes the author's overall purpose unclear. The quality of the writing and some gorgeous descriptive paragraphs will take your breath away, however, and perhaps leave you as anxious as I am to see what Hooper does in her next novel. Mary Whipple

This is a lot to cover in 230 pages. In order to tell Kate's story and provide the background of her affair with Thomas Marne, Hooper must give many flashbacks while simultaneously revealing Kate's life in the classroom, her trysts with Thomas, and the perceived threats to her life. The suspense depends on the reader's seeing parallels between Kate's affair and that of the 1983 victim, Ellie Siddells, so Kate, as narrator, must also provide information about Ellie's background and her murder. The animal story is yet another level of abstraction which the reader must correlate with Kate's life.

Though the novel is filled with dazzling descriptions and some insightful observations about childhood, the novel ultimately ends up being talky, its three stories overwhelming its characters and obscuring its focus. The narrator, Kate, dictates and talks about the action, instead of bringing it to life, and the reader never really gets to know her. Plot and suspense are the novel's focus at the beginning, while Kate's (undeveloped) character and her coming of age are the focus at the end, a problem which makes the author's overall purpose unclear. The quality of the writing and some gorgeous descriptive paragraphs will take your breath away, however, and perhaps leave you as anxious as I am to see what Hooper does in her next novel. Mary Whipple

Though I thought this book was extremely well written and cleverly constructed, I did find the end rather a disappointment. Agreeably, this isn't a commercial whodunnit so I wasn't expecting a Scream-style ending but even so, the pace slowly meanders into an anti-climax as reality asserts. I realise this is the point as the novel is more an exploration of Kate's character and mental state but even so... I was left feeling disappointed. A 'reality' ending may be more convincing but I also felt it was rather lame. All the same, I did enjoy this book and I would still recommend it to everyone. It's highly original and thoughtful and worth reading, even if the end disappoints.