Quiet in Her Bones by Nalini Singh
I would like to thank Gollancz for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Gollancz
Published – Out Now
Price – £14.99 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook
My mother vanished ten years ago.
So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash.
Now, she's back.
Her bones clothed in scarlet silk.
When socialite Nina Rai disappeared without a trace, everyone wrote it off as another trophy wife tired of her wealthy husband. But now her bones have turned up in the shadowed green of the forest that surrounds her elite neighborhood, a haven of privilege and secrets that's housed the same influential families for decades.
The rich live here, along with those whose job it is to make their lives easier. And somebody knows what happened to Nina one rainy night ten years ago. Her son Aarav heard a chilling scream that night, and he's determined to uncover the ugly truth that lives beneath the moneyed elegance . . . but no one is ready for the murderous secrets about to crawl out of the dark.
Even the dead aren't allowed to break the rules in this cul-de-sac.
In stories or even blogs dear reader you put trust in what I tell you. You trust my fair and honest review of a book. I don’t however tell you everything in the book. Often, I may skip key plot points as I don’t want you to be spoiled or work out the final reveal I loved so much. In fiction the concept of the unreliable narrator has a useful history – a potential betrayal of trust that makes you start to question what you’ve been reading. In Quiet in Her Bones by Nalini Singh w get a thriller of a family and its neighbours all hoarding secrets and a sense that the truth is yet to be uncovered.
Aarav is man in the twenties with pretty much all he could want – son of a wealthy businessman, just written his first bestseller that turned into a movie and charm that leaves many broken hearts after him. But ten years ago, when he was sixteen his mother Nina had yet another row with his father, walked out the door in the middle of a storm with $250,000 and was never seen again. A moment that haunts and breaks Aarav who finds alcohol a joy to get lost in. Recovering from a recent car crash he is forced to stay in the family home when the police turn up – his mother’s car from that night has been found in the nearby forest and a body has been found. Aarav finds himself trying despite a brain fog from his injuries and medication trying to piece what actually happened that night and who in his family or wider neighbourhood had a motive. It turns out nearly everyone does.
I had a mixed reaction this thriller. The start is captivating. Singh gives the story a lot of atmosphere and the success of that is Aarav’s voice. A very unusual character who I suspect I would not like if I met publicly as they seem full of spikes but as we get the inner voice, we find someone who is very much a lost child missing their parent and carrying the cars of that in all their future relationships. Intriguingly he carries a lot of guilt and this turns into self-loathing. Happy to lie, calls themselves a sociopath and knows they can make people do what they want. We geta sense all is not right here and Aarav starts getting lost time and strange notes he cannot recall. Has his mother’s re-appearance triggered something else?
We have an unusual setting in New Zealand, so this is a chance to explore a different world and approach here. Rich business owners mix with same sex couple and the deeply conservative religious on the face of it all very neighbourly, but Aarav knows a lot of their secrets via his mother and starts using his writer brain to find out even more and his ruthless side to make people him what they know. There are a vast number of suspects and secrets to uncover which makes it a good puzzle for the reader. I however found it a little overloaded – pacing seemed to slow down rather than speed up and the constant hints that Aarav may be an unreliable narrator strongly help give me a sense of something else going on.
Overall a mixed bag of a thriller. I loved the setting, the main character and the initial mystery but didn’t find the ongoing mystery that engaging. I’ll be looking for more by Singh as the writing talent is clear but not quite what I was looking for in this mystery.
