Thanks to NetGalley and Tantor Media | Tantor Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review.
I’m a little annoyed that this was marketed as a mystery when it is very much not, but it was a very good book, so I can’t in the end remain annoyed. I just wish I’d been able to set my expectations accordingly. This is, in fact, historical fiction that errs into literary territory on occasion, with a smidgeon of crime for light flavor.
This takes place in the late 1970s in Yorkshire. The ostensible plot is that twelve year old Miv (who is lovely) has decided to try and catch the Yorkshire Ripper (a real serial killer) herself, largely so that she and her family won’t move away to keep her safe and leave her only and best friend, Sharon, behind. Miv’s love for Sharon is one of the purest things in the book. What this means, though—because unlike in most novels about twelve year old detectives, Miv and Sharon have absolutely no idea what they are doing—is that of course they do not catch the killer. What they do, however, is stir up a lot of secrets, and get a lot of their illusions about how the world works shattered.
This book had lovely prose and atmosphere. I loved the historical details the author threw in (the book opens with a rant by Miv’s aunt about Margaret Thatcher the “milk snatcher,” because Margaret Thatcher famously ended the provision of free milk for most primary school children in the UK). I also enjoyed all the secondary characters.
I will say that the author does play around with the conventions of mystery novels in a way that is fun in retrospect, but knowing this book isn’t really a mystery will help you not be disappointed by the ending. I’m glad I ended up buying a copy of this book for myself, as I would like to revisit in the future, knowing exactly what kind of book it is the whole time I’m reading it.