Aylesbury Library is holding its first ever Literary Day on 30th November, which will be host to several great local authors. One of them is award-winning, bestselling crime-writer SJ Bolton...
Some crime novels are as cosy as tea and cake by the fireside; where everyone ends up happy (except for the deceased, presumably), and the world is a happy, bubbling place. And then there are crime novels that snare you like a fishhook to the mouth; where you know you shouldn't continue reading past dark, but you just can't put it down. Books where no one survives unscathed, and the world is a fearful place that ends ultimately in death.
Guess which sort of book SJ Bolton writes?
I was thirty pages into my first SJ Bolton book, when I realised I should have paid more heed to the title: Dead Scared. You know a writer is good when a table covered with pine cones is enough to give you goosebumps.
Dead Scared sees a surprising number of young, attractive and fragile Cambridge students committing suicide in a number of ghoulish and inventive ways. Student councillor and psychiatrist Evie Oliver is suspicious that these deaths are more than they appear - and she's also certain that someone keeps breaking into her house...
Lacey Flint, a young police officer with a past, is drafted in to pose undercover as a student so that she can observe the campus, and keep an eye out for any secretive suicide death cults. Of course we know that things don't go to plan - in fact, Bolton makes that plainly clear by her prologue: Lacey standing at the top of a building, dead-eyed and suicidal. And about to jump. The rest of the story is a countdown to this ending, and each new day in the story gives a heading of how many days to go to this cataclysmic event.
This is a modern gothic thriller that really knows how to deliver both the thrills and the chills in the story. It feels as if the story has been well-researched (hopefully not too deeply researched), and Bolton has a good understanding of the effects of the both media and social media. The characterisation is good - Lacey and Evie particularly have distinct, believable personalities and voices. Both characters had appeared in previous SJ Bolton novels: Lacey in Bolton's previous novel, Now You See Me (no magians here, but a Jack the Ripper copycat fixated on Lacey) , and Evie in Blood Harvest (a disturbing thriller revolving around the discovery of two children's bodies). Despite this, you don't have to have read the previous books to enjoy this one - and you learn Lacey and Evie's backstories as you get to know them better. As Evie pines for her lost love Harry, there's a good building romance between Lacey and her DI, Mark Joesbury, who's clearly in love with her. All the recurring characters are truly human, and are still dealing with the fallout from the earlier novels.
But it's as a crime nasty where the book really stands out. The inventive suicides (I won't spoil them for you here, but one in particular was jaw-dropping), the pervading sense of fear and dread (I had to make sure my door was locked and the curtains were pulled tightly across the window!) and the clues, red herrings, and plot twists work really well. Of course, savvy crime readers watch out for the red herrings, but there was one clue in particular that I just couldn't decide upon. Some of the scene-setting descriptions were exceptionally creepy, and I couldn't help but repeat it out loud to my fellow library ninjas. Lines like, "The January chill comes drifting over the Fens and wraps itself across the city like a paedophile's hand round that of a small, unresisting child." And a villain who clings to her boyfriend "like a bad smell around rotting meat." The book opens with a graphic, detailed description of what happens when a person falls a long distance to their death, and despite the factual, deadpanned tone, I can imagine SJ Bolton cackling with glee as she wrote it. This is an author who knows how to scare people, and likes it.
If you don't like being scared, then keep away from this book. But if you like authors like Mark Billingham or Phil Rickman, or are on the lookout for a well-written, original thriller, then SJ Bolton is a must read.
I'm currently reading her latest novel, Like This, For Ever. It's about a serial killer targetting ten year old boys, and draining their blood. I don't think it's going to end well...
Don't forget, you can meet SJ Bolton at Aylesbury Library this Saturday (30th November), at 12.50, where she'll discuss the art of a good scare. Her Twitter page (@AuthorSJBolton) describes her as "Nice Author. Nasty Books. (Or should that be the other way round?)" I sure hope not, because if she's as nasty as her books, I don't think I'd survive meeting her!
Literally.
Literally.
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