Morag Joss is a truly gifted writer, and her Half Broken Things, which won the CWA Silver Dagger, was one of the best psychological suspense novels I have read in years. Her latest book was short-listed in the US for the Edgar for best novel, an accolade that was well-merited yet slightly misleading. For this is a book which, to my mind, does not really fit within the boundaries of the crime novel – or, at least, it illustrates how uncertain those boundaries are.
There are three key characters. An unnamed narrator discovers that her husband Jeremy has been unfaithful to her, and in a state of turmoil she gets into her car and accidentally kills a woman cyclist. She finds herself drawn to the home of Arthur, the widower, who cannot reconcile himself to his sudden loss, and who starts to read a manuscript written by his wife, Ruth, which he had never looked at before. Ruth’s story is set in a Northern working class town, mainly in the 1930s, and gradually it reveals a long-hidden secret. As time passes, the narrator finds herself taking over the role of Ruth in Arthur’s life, while he descends into grief-stricken madness, thirsting to take revenge against whoever killed his beloved wife.
The contrasting literary styles of the narrator and Ruth are among the many pleasures of this beautifully written book. One might compare Joss’s novel with the best work of Barbara Vine, but in truth this is a highly original story, with tension, suspense and mystery, yes, yet as aspects of a novel that is not about a murder or its consequences, but rather a study in the disintegrating mental states of two people who try to make sense of a world in which so much does not add up.
This is an even more ambitious book than Half
Broken Things, and – like many fine and ambitious novels
– it has flaws. I found it difficult, for instance, to understand how
the narrator’s marriage had kept going as long as it had (or, indeed,
what had really caused the couple to marry in the first place), let alone to
believe that she would have behaved in quite the way she did. Ruth’s manuscript
was readable, but rather flat at times and could have benefited from cutting.
Nor was I entirely convinced by Arthur’s intrusive and rather appalling
neighbours. Nevertheless, this is a remarkable novel which I shall remember
for a long time.