The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
| The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: A cracking story which completely blew me away. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 464 | Date: February 2024 |
| Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1529153293 | |
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It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
The solution is obviously to discover the identity of the man they're calling the Yorkshire Ripper. Then they could stay where they are, couldn't they? So, a notebook is acquired and Miv and Sharon make a list of all the suspicious people down their streets - and a bit further afield. It begins with people they know and spreads to people they don't know. As is the way with children (Miv's eleven when the story starts) they uncover things which would have been best left hidden and put themselves in dreadful danger in the process.
I loved this story: it took me back to 1979 when my daughter and I lived in the area that was haunted by the Ripper. My daughter was about the same age as Miv and I remember going to a lot of trouble to keep the details away from her. For women of any age, it was a constant worry and Jennie Godfrey brings this to life with extraordinary clarity. She creates a community in the streets around Miv's home. Aunty Jean has come to live with the family now that Miv's mother's not well. She's a force of nature who liked to tidy up the messiness of life. Miv can't work out if 'those types of women' being murdered were the same as Margaret Thatcher - another of her pet hates - who had taken milk away from poor children's mouths and jobs from the hands of hardworking men.
At school, Neil Callaghan and Reece Carlton are the troublemakers. Every school has them. Ishtiaq is an easy target for them. It's not just his colour: he's a nerdy, studious child, who's already lost his mother. His father is Omar, the local shopkeeper, who does his best to protect his son but he has his troubles, with damage to his shop. You have to wonder how much of that was down to Callaghan and Carlton. At the library, Mrs Andrews is a real help to the girls but it's not long before they realise that she's the victim of domestic abuse.
As well as reading the book, I listened to an audio download (which I bought myself) narrated by Joanne Froggatt, Mark Noble and Asif Khan. It's superb. The story is clear about who is speaking but I was never in any doubt because of the range of voices from each narrator. The pacing was excellent and I would gladly listen to more from any of the narrators.
The ending is perfect but I was still sorry to come to the end of such a brilliant book. Godfrey does a brilliant job of fitting a moving story into a dreadful time in our history, without minimising either. I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy. I'm looking forward to reading whatever Godfrey writes next.
You might also enjoy (if that's an appropriate word) The Last Person in the World by Matthew Tree.
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