Mini Reviews of Recent Reads: Other Women by Emma Flint and Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

Two for the price of one today, for the second time this month! While I don’t normally rely upon mini reviews so much, the rationale here is twofold. Firstly, I am (once again!) playing catch up, and secondly, these two books are the last two of my 20 Books of Summer, and posting reviews of both today means that I’ve just completed the challenge in time! 🥳

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It is 1923 and a country is in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost in the war, millions more returned home wounded and forever changed.
Beatrice Cade is an orphan, unmarried and childless. After her brother’s death, she decides to make a new life for herself. She takes a room in a Bloomsbury ladies’ club and a job in the City. But just when her new world is starting to take shape, a fleeting encounter threatens to ruin everything.
Kate Ryan is an ordinary wife and mother. Since the end of the war, she has managed to build an enviable life with her husband and young daughter. From the outside, they seem like a normal, happy family. But when two policemen knock on Kate’s door and jeopardise the facade Kate has created, she knows what she has to do to protect the people she loves. And suddenly, two women who never should have met are connected for ever…

I adored Emma Flint’s debut, Little Deaths, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting her second novel.  Having suffered through a reading slump recently, this proved to the just the tonic that I needed to pull me back out of it.

The story behind Other Women is a fascinating one, and all the more so for being based upon true events, giving a voice to the women at the heart of what happened.  And Flint tells it brilliantly – interweaving two separate timelines as we see Bea begin an affair with a married man, and the perspective of Kate, his wife, some months later after he has been arrested.  We don’t know exactly what the charge is initially, although it doesn’t all take all that much to figure it out, but it’s a fantastic hook and Flint keeps the tension high – I couldn’t read quickly enough to find out what had happened to those involved and why the affair had soured to that point.  

The characters of Bea, Kate, and Tom are all brilliantly done.  Bea evokes sympathy despite being with another woman’s husband – their relationship seems passionate, and yet I couldn’t help but think that Bea was being used and taken advantage of, although I understood why she was blind to that in her feelings for Tom.  That the press depicts her as a wanton villainess comes as no surprise whatsoever, conveniently forgetting that such an affair requires two willing participants and that too put me on her side.  Some of her behaviour is a little questionable, although there are reasons for that, particularly as we get to know Tom – through both Bea and Kate’s eyes – in more detail. 

I love the duality of the title.  The idea of being the “other woman” as Bea is, but also of not fitting neatly into one of society’s pigeonholes.  Bea is neither a wife, fiancée, or girlfriend (I refuse to use the S word), nor is she a mother.  She doesn’t fit into any neat category, and it sets her apart from many of those around her even though she’s not alone in her situation.  At the time, this would have been particularly surprising, and the contrast between the younger women that she works with who are very much seeking Mr Right is startling.  While such expectations have diminished since the 1920s, there are still those who assume that default position 100 years later – something that I’ve faced as a woman “of a certain age” who is childless and unmarried by choice.

Other Women is a novel that I highly recommend, particularly for those who enjoy courtroom dramas with compelling characters. 

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IT WAS A CASE THAT GRIPPED THE NATION
LUKE RYDER’S MURDER HAS NEVER BEEN SOLVED
In December 2003, Luke Ryder was found dead in the garden of the family home in London, leaving behind a wealthy older widow and three stepchildren. Nobody saw anything.
Now, secrets will be revealed – live on camera.
Years later a group of experts re-examine the evidence on Infamous, a true-crime show – with shocking results. Does the team know more than they’ve been letting on?
Or does the truth lie closer to home?
Can you solve the case before they do?
The truth will blow your mind.

While I absolutely adore Cara Hunter’s DI Fawley series, I was excited by the prospect of a standalone novel from Hunter – to say that I had high expectations of this one doesn’t even begin to cover it.   

If you read any of Hunter’s novels, you’ll know that she likes to play with formats, and the Fawley series includes text messages, interview transcripts, and comments made online alongside the usual narrative you’d expect in a police procedural.  With Murder in the Family, she goes a step further, presenting the novel as though it were a true crime documentary being shown on Netflix, not quite scripted as the team are taking part in a live investigation, but noting who’s talking, and including the filming queues, direction, what the camera is taking in at any given point.  Going into this, did I question how well such a format would translate onto the page?  Yes, of course I did (and I’ll say that I have no idea how well it will work on audio).  Was it absolutely brilliant? You betcha.

I can’t say too much about how the investigation evolves as it would be far too easy to give something away, but the plot moves quickly as the assembled experts – a retired Met officer, an ex-NYPD officer turned private eye, a journalist, a barrister, a psychologist, and a forensics expert – begin to uncover a few truths about the murder of Luke Ryder, unsolved for 20 years.  I did guess at some of what was going on, and indeed whodunnit (I guess that armchair sleuthing is starting to pay off after all!) but I still thoroughly enjoyed the novel and seeing the team come to their own conclusions.  It’s a fascinating journey, and becomes a little fraught at times as some big personalities begin to butt up against one another. 

Murder in the Family is an absolutely brilliant novel that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to those who loved fast-paced mysteries.  This is a little different to the DI Fawley series in that it’s not strictly a police procedural, and I enjoyed seeing the different skills of the assembled team come into play as they open up new avenues of investigation.  Highly recommended.