"Crime creeps through the streets of Scarborough"Wander past the North Bay, down Prince of Wales Terrace, Huntriss Row and find yourself at the Crowne Spa Hotel. All of these real locations appear in Charlotte Link's book, The Other Child. It is steeped in the feel of the city. How about this wonderful description of the town: ..."two large semi-circular bays divided by a spit of land, as well as its old harbour, the fine houses up on South Cliff, and all the old-fashioned hotels whose façades had to stand up to the wind and the salt water and so were always peeling a little." (excerpt)And what of the novel itself? It opens with an early murder and then comes to focus on a group of people have come together at the delapidated farm of Chad Beckett, just outside Scarborough, to mark the proposed engagement of Gwen, Chad's dull daughter and Dave, an itinerant language teacher. Staying at the farm are paying guests, Jennifer and Colin and for good measure their 2 Great Danes. Newly divorced Leslie arrives from London, and attends the gathering with her Grandmother, Fiona. Fiona and Chad have a long standing relationship, going back to World War II, which is explored separately in the book. Investigating the original murder and a second victim are DI Valerie Almond and her side-kick Sergeant Reek. These guys are the weak link in the story and one can only hope their bumbling investigations do not reflect reality.It is a very readable crime novel, it veres one way, then another and produces a few red herrings. It reinforces the progress of the story by exploring the musings of the various characters and it is fast paced.There are some anomalies, however, both in the translation and factually - for example, it describes a British family in North Yorkshire, just after the war, eating bread and salami. Er, unlikely. That is what a German family might have been eating but we think it is more likely an English family would have been eating spam! What do you think - Spam v Salami??????So, this book is very much like the proverbial Curate's Egg -- good in parts. But the author must be doing something right, as on the cover it says "16 million books sold". I had never read this author before but apparently she is referred to as the German Queen of Crime. She has many books to her credit, most of which are apparently not in translation. I found this novel interesting, although the connections between the various themes and plots did not become apparent until close to the end. For a while I was really wondering why the book was titled as it is since I could not see any connection between an obscure happening in the past and the present crimes. The reasoning is very psychological and reminiscent of the writing of the author Ruth Rendell.If you like happy endings this book will not satisfy you, as no one really wins in the end. Interesting, though.
What do You think about The Other Child (2009)?
Compelling, disquieting, but unputdownable
—mizdivine
