Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Summer 2017, teenage mother Tallulah and her boyfriend go missing after attending a party at Dark Place, the home of her new friend, the bohemian daughter of a wealthy family. A year later and newly relocated to the country from London Sophie discovers a sign reading ‘Dig Here’ nailed to a fence near to the now abandoned house. What she finds draws her into the stalled investigation into what happened that a year ago and who now wants to see it restarted.
This is a cleverly constructed and supremely stylish thriller that neatly repurposes some of the genres most familiar conventions. Old houses in quiet villages have been the setting for shady goings on since Dame Agatha was starting out, what Lisa Jewell does brilliantly is locate in these cozy surroundings a decidedly unsettling story about betrayed trust and love turned sour.
She creates an all too convincing picture of what it is like to be in an abusive relationship. The toxic mixture of overt threats and more coercive undermining of the victim’s sense of self that leaves them trapped with no visible means of escape. Jewell also writes well about the way the disappearance sets up ripples in the lives of those who are touched by it that may, in some cases, grow to the size of tidal waves.
This is a remarkably insightful book that uses the conventions of genre fiction to take an unflinching look at things we would rather pretend not to see. Yet again, as in so much of her work, Lisa Jewell has shown herself to be a writer of who understands perfectly the zeitgeist, both light and dark, of her time.
