By Liz Soares
The child murderer who is released from prison under a new identity is a peculiarly British character. We have plenty of young killers here in the U.S., but we keep them in the hoosegow. Over the pond, they let them go after a time, which riles the public, and the tabloids, to no end. Thus, any Yank reader of the Daily Mail well knows the names of Mary Bell, Jon Venables, and Robert Thompson—as they were once called.
Alex Marwood’s first novel, The Wicked Girls, plays on this theme, which adds another level of suspense to the main plot line—“psycho at large in a seaside tourist trap.” It’s an exciting page-turner, in which the murder of a child 25 years ago is intertwined with the contemporary mystery of a serial killer.
The girls who have grown into new lives are Amber Gordon, head custodian at Funnland, an amusement park in the south England town of Whitmouth, and Kirsty Lindsay, a freelance journalist who comes to town when the bodies start piling up. They are each facing their own trials and tribulations—Amber’s boyfriend is odd and moody and Kirsty’s husband is out of work.
Amber and Kirsty grew up together in a small town. One was from a large, unruly and poor family. The other lived in financial comfort, but was psychologically and sexually abused. Marwood tells the story of their crime in chapters interspersed with the story of how their adult lives intersect.
The backstory of that long-ago murder unfolds slowly, tantalizingly. How will this warm, boring summer day end in tragedy? Why, how, when, will four-year-old Chloe die?
The girls barely knew each other, and Chloe was foisted on them by one of their brothers. As Kirsty tells Amber, “I said we couldn’t leave her, ‘cause someone might come along and kill her.”
One girl is sentenced to the bleak confines of Blackdown Hills, “where they sent you if they thought you were never coming out.” The other not only has an easier time of it in another juvenile facility, but is encouraged to grow and learn.
Fast forward to today. Amber discovers a body at the amusement park, so it’s inevitable she and Kirsty will cross paths. It’s a dangerous situation. They are forbidden contact with one another as a condition of their release. And if the truth of their past gets out, their lives will be ruined. The women’s loved ones have no idea who they are (or were). The press and public will hound them. As they try to avoid personal tragedy, they are caught up in the vicious murders that are plaguing the small, worn-out, coastal resort.
The tangled web of past and present ensnares Amber and Kirsty—leading to an ending that surprises right up to the final pages.
The Wicked Girls has been nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and rightly so. It’s a thrilling mystery, but it's also a poignant portrait of what happens when children kill other children. The tragedy, as we see, is not restricted to the victims.
