A Child's Book Of True Crime

A CHILD’S BOOK OF TRUE CRIME

by Chloe Hooper

 

Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2004, Women’s Prize Finalist 2002

 

Date Read: November 24, 2023

 

I think this book was trying to be suspenseful and intriguing but it missed the mark for me. Premise: a primary school teacher, Kate Byrne, embarks on an affair with the father, Thomas, of one of her students, Lucien. Thomas’s wife, Vanessa, is a true crime author who has just published a book about a murder that happened nearby. As strange phone calls and mysterious car malfunctions occur, Kate begins to think the same circumstances surrounding that murder are happening to her.

 

The murder at Black Swan Point saw a vet having an affair with his very young assistant. When the wife discovered the affair, she confronted her husband and hit him in the head with a wine bottle, cutting him badly. He passed out and woke to find blood all over their room and word makes it to him that his lover is dead and his wife is missing. They find the wife’s car at a notorious suicide cliff with the doors unlocked and her purse in the car. Seems like an open and shut case that the wife exacted revenge and then killed herself. But it could have been the husband who had killed his wife after learning she had killed his lover. Or maybe he killed both and staged the suicide? Regardless, there is no way to ever know exactly what happened.

 

And in the end? Just when you think maybe, just maybe this book can redeem itself, absolutely nothing happens except the teacher becoming unglued. Vanessa has known about the affair the entire time and Kate just ends up humiliating herself by freaking out at their house, becoming oddly violent and getting herself fired. Kate’s only resolve after all this nonsense is to write Lucien a child’s book of true crime to explain herself and the murder he was undoubtedly exposed to while his mother wrote her book. She had seen pictures of the crime scene on Vanessa’s office walls. Kate ultimately want to explain why adults do what they do. But who could ever explain the complexities of human beings?

 

There are interludes of the book Kate wants to write, which was somewhat sweet although completely misguided. To say I was disappointed by this one would be an understatement.

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