Book 239: Falkland Islands (English) – Little Black Lies (Sharon BOLTON)

The islands are transformed by the setting of the sun. As the colours fade to monochrome, as the fine contours of the landscape melt into shadow, so the sounds and scents and textures of the land wake up. People who live in the populated parts of the world talk about the quiet, the stillness, of night. Here, when the sparse population goes to its rest, the opposite happens. Here, night-time means an endless cacophony of noise. The nesting birds that Bee and I ride past chuckle and gossip, in a constant, squabbling carpet of sound. Overhead, avian teenagers carouse in high-pitched revelry, drunk on flight and freedom. Hawks sing, penguins on the nearby shore bray at the howling of the wind, while the clifftop albatross colony might be discussing politics, so varied and intelligent seem their conversations. Beneath it all is the endless grumble and roar of the ocean.

This one is a bit of a placeholder. Sharon Bolton isn’t from the Falkland Islands and I couldn’t find mention anywhere that she had even visited. (Though the descriptions ‘feel’ seem so realistic that that’s hard to believe). But since I was unable to find a single novel written by a Kelper – or by a long-term visitor – this one will have to do until one appears. And, frankly, this thriller is so good that I couldn’t pass it over.

The Falklands would appear in reality to be one of those island countries where everybody knows everybody (although there is a visiting cruise ship in this story to throw in a wild card); crime doesn’t happen and in fact nothing normally happens (apart from the little matter of the Argentine invasion and its legacies, such as PTSD and minefields). (“Margaret Thatcher, who’s practically become the patron saint of the islands after her handling of the invasion, talks about society being redundant, of the individual being king. If she truly knew and understood this place, she’d never spout such a load of old bollocks”). Indeed there’s no privacy even for the police – I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them!

When suddenly one child after another goes missing, even suspects have to get involved in the search. Three of the chief suspects are the prickly, troubled Catrin (who had already lost her own children), Rachel (the best friend from her childhood) and ex-soldier Callum, Catrin’s former lover – all of them flawed, are stalking each other, and all of them get to tell a third of the story from their point of view in turn. Whose version can you trust, if any of them? All of them have suffered losses, are damaged and suspicious, have darkness in their souls, and have secrets to be revealed. You can’t help wondering, if something like this happened to you, whether fate might tear you asunder from even your best friend as well.

The main characters are brilliantly drawn and believable (or should I say plausible), the setting is very atmospheric (a major character in itself), and the plot is not unbelievable but is fast and intricate and keeps you guessing right till the end.

For me the most devastating part was the pilot whale stranding, failed rescue and subsequent killing carried out by Catrin – even if in a good humanitarian cause, it showed that she was capable of killing!

The references to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to represent the unbearable burden that must be borne by Rachel for past actions that are sewn into the text were brilliant.

The ending is very clever and unexpected, although perhaps the author should have provided more information so that it would be possible to spot the miscreant ourselves (I was brought up on the Agatha Christie fair play rules!) Sour grapes since I didn’t guess the correct culprit, right? It also seemed a bit strange that Catrin and Callum hadn’t discussed the long-ago fate of their children Ned and Kit until the point in the story when they do. The pacing of the story was masterful. I totally recommend this one for thriller lovers, or anyone who’d like a quick trip to the Falklands.

Bolton, Sharon (1960 – ), Little Black Lies, London, Corgi, 2015, ISBN 978-0-552-16639-3