Nuala Ellwood’s latest, following her debut My Sister's Bones, continues the trend of crime novels that have appeared in the wake of the successes of The Girl on the Train / Gone Girl., but her's has a spin of its own, that makes it an emotional charged, and chilling one-sitting read.
Maggie regains consciousness in a hospital in Lewes, Sussex. Her mind is a blank after several weeks of being comatose. The nursing staff tell her that she has been involved in a terrible accident, in which her young daughter, Elspeth was killed. This is shattering news. Elspeth was the centre of her life. She asks after her husband Sean. Why is he not here? The medical staff tell her that he has disappeared. Her distress is so great that they are forced to sedate her.
Eventually she recovers sufficiently to recall more details. Her injuries were caused as she tried to prevent her car falling into the River Ouse, due to what appears to be a fault within the car. The incident takes her daughter Elspeth’s life as she was strapped in, and it appears all the doors were locked. Though Maggie could be considered an overly protective mother; however she would never, never have locked Elspeth in the car. She can’t accept the loss of her little Elspeth, struggling to acknowledge the hole in her life.
When she is well enough to return home, she is told that she no longer owns the luxurious house that she and her family lived in. It appears that her husband has sold it.
Maggie is moved first into a care home, and then into a flat in Lewes. She comes to the realisation that she has to seize the initiative herself, and try to find out what really happened on that fateful day. This is incredibly difficult for her, as she has never done anything for herself since her marriage, but relied entirely on her husband Sean, but she knows her sanity depends upon her uncovering the truth.
Adding to this psychological narrative, we learn that when Maggie was a youth, a traumatic event caused a fracture within her, and her family. This resulted in a complete breakdown in her relationship with her mother, which would have fateful repercussions, as well as a deep tragedy.
This second novel from Nuala Ellwood bristles like a severed, and exposed, electrical cable with an emotionally charged narrative, coupled to a fiendishly clever plot.
Because of its sharp pace, I defy anyone to put it down after the spine is cracked, for it is truly a single sitting read.
