Riveting and well-rounded examination of facing one’s past. Intelligent and engrossing.
The Liar’s Girl is the second mystery thriller from Irish author Catherine Ryan Howard and is a thoroughly engrossing and multilayered work of crime fiction. Intelligently recounted, a slow-burning suspense runs throughout the novel, builds to a satisfying resolution and features a protagonist who is portrayed with insight and sensitivity. In a riveting and well-rounded examination of facing one’s past this story will appeal to crime fiction readers who value the realistic procedural aspects of a story yet demand an appreciation of the psychological aspects which motivate the events.
When Alison Smith opens her front door in Breda to be greeted by two Gardaí detectives she is taken straight back to a past she fled from and has refused to confront. However, all that is about to change when the detectives appeal for Alison’s assistance and unleash a hornet’s nest of conflicting emotions and self-recrimination. As a nineteen-year-old from Cork, Alison Smith achieved her dream of winning a place at elite St. John’s College in Dublin but before the academic year was through her life as she knew it came to an abrupt and very unwelcome end. Caught in the throes of first love with student boyfriend, Will Hurley, when a serial killer begins preying on the female students by inflicting a blow to the head and disposing of their bodies in the Grand Canal, the atmosphere takes a darker turn and the predator is dubbed the Canal Killer. With four students having already fallen victim, when Alison’s best friend, Liz, becomes the fifth and boyfriend Will is subsequently arrested and then confesses, Alison’s world implodes. Alison escaped to the Netherlands and has remained there ever since, working and carving out a new life for herself and sentenced to life imprisonment, Will is resident within Dublin’s Central Psychiatric Hospital. When a series of copycat murders occur, Will is reinterviewed by the Gardaí and claims that he has can be of assistance but declares himself willing to talk to one person alone, his girlfriend of nine months at the time of the first murders, Alison. As a reluctant Alison meets with Will he tells her his confession was a mistake and beseeches her for help in proving his innocence. As Alison readies herself to turn her back on Will, unwilling to be held hostage by his demands, she is shocked when the Gardaí tell her think there might be some truth to his claims..
Narrated through a shifting timeline in the first-person with “Alison, then” as a student in 2007 and “Alison, now” confronting the events a decade after, Ryan Howard is able to expose how the past has shaped Alison and moulded her as a person. The 2007 timeline sees Alison discovering a life away from her parents, first love with Will and portrays an increasingly toxic friendship with capricious friend from home, Liz. “Alison, now” narrates her reluctant return to Dublin and the visits to Will are told with sincerity, capturing her honest concerns about what Will will think of her, and more importantly, what she wants him to think of her! Interspersed throughout are untitled chapters which reveal the thoughts of an individual with involvement in both the 2007 murders and the current spate, but cleverly Ryan Howard leaves her readers dangling as to Will’s possible involvement as accomplice or co-conspirator. The character of Will is heard briefly at both the start and the end of the novel and what readers learn of him is largely seen through the eyes of Alison, making him a shadowy figure with the question of why he has waited a decade to assert his claims pressing and leaving his reliability in considerable doubt.
Opening strongly, Ryan Howard skilfully doles out bit part glimpses into Alison’s first year at St. John’s alongside the current investigation, serving to heighten tension as the reader finds themselves drawn into Alison’s turmoil and a race to discover if Will played a part in the murders. As the unsatisfactorily resolved aspects of the original investigation are exposed in tandem with Detective Malone, Alison increasingly starts to concur that Will might have been more a victim of confirmation bias and the wish for a swift resolution. As Alison looks back on what lead to suspicion falling on Will and her involvement in it she has to confront her guilt about the feeling of having let Liz down. Realising that in order to restart her own life she must achieve closure and confront the reasons that caused her to leave Dublin, Alison proves herself a feisty and tenacious investigator, determined as much for Will and Liz as for herself and her parents, to put an end to the past. Whilst I did not warm to lead character Alison on outset my empathy grew the more I discovered of her story and was able to witness the effects it had had on her own life, making it patently obvious that Will’s incarceration and Liz’s murder had also played a part in many of her own life decisions, from her failure to return home to her standoffishness with potential partners and friends. Catherine Ryan Howard manages to demonstrate that the victims of the Canal Killer are not limited to the murdered women alone.
Detective Sergeant Jerry Shaw’s taciturn manner extricated Will’s confession and is unwilling to consider his innocence but his more judicious sidekick Detective Michael Malone has his own working theories and niggling concerns about some aspects of the 2007 investigation. As with Distress Signals, the author uses the differences between the UK and Irish legal system to highlight the more questionable aspects of Will’s prosecution, from being encouraged to plead guilty and forgo a trial to not having his solicitor present during police questioning. Despite not feeling particularly invested in Will’s fate and finding him rather sterile it is hard to feel anything but sympathy for his treatment and concede that his naivety and youth was taken advantage of.
I suspect that for lovers of psychological fiction the twists and turns will not be jaw-droppingly showy enough for many readers, largely because they are so readily believable and for me this is what makes the story work so well. With so many psychological thrillers increasingly giving in to peppering the plot with outlandish and ludicrously unlikely twists, that Ryan Howard has stayed in believable territory adds to her credibility. For me the twists were the significant turning points in the current investigation, with substantive discoveries being made and factored in to the situation. I confess to expecting a final twist in the tale, but credit to Catherine Ryan Howard whose admirable sleight of hand keeps her audience guessing until the last. Although there are signs of a future relationship between Garda Malone and Alison forming this aspect remains muted and Ryan Howard resists the temptation of opting for the overly trite happy ending. Well played and highly recommended.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
When Alison Smith opens her front door in Breda to be greeted by two Gardaí detectives she is taken straight back to a past she fled from and has refused to confront. However, all that is about to change when the detectives appeal for Alison’s assistance and unleash a hornet’s nest of conflicting emotions and self-recrimination. As a nineteen-year-old from Cork, Alison Smith achieved her dream of winning a place at elite St. John’s College in Dublin but before the academic year was through her life as she knew it came to an abrupt and very unwelcome end. Caught in the throes of first love with student boyfriend, Will Hurley, when a serial killer begins preying on the female students by inflicting a blow to the head and disposing of their bodies in the Grand Canal, the atmosphere takes a darker turn and the predator is dubbed the Canal Killer. With four students having already fallen victim, when Alison’s best friend, Liz, becomes the fifth and boyfriend Will is subsequently arrested and then confesses, Alison’s world implodes. Alison escaped to the Netherlands and has remained there ever since, working and carving out a new life for herself and sentenced to life imprisonment, Will is resident within Dublin’s Central Psychiatric Hospital. When a series of copycat murders occur, Will is reinterviewed by the Gardaí and claims that he has can be of assistance but declares himself willing to talk to one person alone, his girlfriend of nine months at the time of the first murders, Alison. As a reluctant Alison meets with Will he tells her his confession was a mistake and beseeches her for help in proving his innocence. As Alison readies herself to turn her back on Will, unwilling to be held hostage by his demands, she is shocked when the Gardaí tell her think there might be some truth to his claims..
Narrated through a shifting timeline in the first-person with “Alison, then” as a student in 2007 and “Alison, now” confronting the events a decade after, Ryan Howard is able to expose how the past has shaped Alison and moulded her as a person. The 2007 timeline sees Alison discovering a life away from her parents, first love with Will and portrays an increasingly toxic friendship with capricious friend from home, Liz. “Alison, now” narrates her reluctant return to Dublin and the visits to Will are told with sincerity, capturing her honest concerns about what Will will think of her, and more importantly, what she wants him to think of her! Interspersed throughout are untitled chapters which reveal the thoughts of an individual with involvement in both the 2007 murders and the current spate, but cleverly Ryan Howard leaves her readers dangling as to Will’s possible involvement as accomplice or co-conspirator. The character of Will is heard briefly at both the start and the end of the novel and what readers learn of him is largely seen through the eyes of Alison, making him a shadowy figure with the question of why he has waited a decade to assert his claims pressing and leaving his reliability in considerable doubt.
Opening strongly, Ryan Howard skilfully doles out bit part glimpses into Alison’s first year at St. John’s alongside the current investigation, serving to heighten tension as the reader finds themselves drawn into Alison’s turmoil and a race to discover if Will played a part in the murders. As the unsatisfactorily resolved aspects of the original investigation are exposed in tandem with Detective Malone, Alison increasingly starts to concur that Will might have been more a victim of confirmation bias and the wish for a swift resolution. As Alison looks back on what lead to suspicion falling on Will and her involvement in it she has to confront her guilt about the feeling of having let Liz down. Realising that in order to restart her own life she must achieve closure and confront the reasons that caused her to leave Dublin, Alison proves herself a feisty and tenacious investigator, determined as much for Will and Liz as for herself and her parents, to put an end to the past. Whilst I did not warm to lead character Alison on outset my empathy grew the more I discovered of her story and was able to witness the effects it had had on her own life, making it patently obvious that Will’s incarceration and Liz’s murder had also played a part in many of her own life decisions, from her failure to return home to her standoffishness with potential partners and friends. Catherine Ryan Howard manages to demonstrate that the victims of the Canal Killer are not limited to the murdered women alone.
Detective Sergeant Jerry Shaw’s taciturn manner extricated Will’s confession and is unwilling to consider his innocence but his more judicious sidekick Detective Michael Malone has his own working theories and niggling concerns about some aspects of the 2007 investigation. As with Distress Signals, the author uses the differences between the UK and Irish legal system to highlight the more questionable aspects of Will’s prosecution, from being encouraged to plead guilty and forgo a trial to not having his solicitor present during police questioning. Despite not feeling particularly invested in Will’s fate and finding him rather sterile it is hard to feel anything but sympathy for his treatment and concede that his naivety and youth was taken advantage of.
I suspect that for lovers of psychological fiction the twists and turns will not be jaw-droppingly showy enough for many readers, largely because they are so readily believable and for me this is what makes the story work so well. With so many psychological thrillers increasingly giving in to peppering the plot with outlandish and ludicrously unlikely twists, that Ryan Howard has stayed in believable territory adds to her credibility. For me the twists were the significant turning points in the current investigation, with substantive discoveries being made and factored in to the situation. I confess to expecting a final twist in the tale, but credit to Catherine Ryan Howard whose admirable sleight of hand keeps her audience guessing until the last. Although there are signs of a future relationship between Garda Malone and Alison forming this aspect remains muted and Ryan Howard resists the temptation of opting for the overly trite happy ending. Well played and highly recommended.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.