New girl ON CAMPUS
WITH FREEDOM COMES MURDER IN THIS DEBUT TALE
This book is what is known as a “campus novel”. It’s about that moment when a young person leaves home to go to university and meets all sorts of different and colourful people who can potentially lead them astray.
Jess Walker is desperate to escape her dull middle-class life and get to varsity. She has applied to be taught by a famously charismatic lecturer, Lorna Clay, an expert on the books of Agatha Christie.
Impressionable and naïve, Jess is already a little bit obsessed with her new tutor, and when she meets her, that obsession deepens further.
She also develops intense relationships with a new set of friends. Troubled, beautiful rich girl Georgie is fun. South African postgraduate journalist Alec is dangerously compelling. When Jess is with them, she feels like a more exciting version of herself.
We know from the prologue that trouble is coming, and it is Jess’ relationships that will lead her into it.
Lorna singles her out and gets unprofessionally close. Alec pays her more attention than he should, given that he’s dating her best friend. Things get messy and, for Jess, who is in the dark about things that have already happened, there are consequences.
One of the best-selling campus novels of all time is Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and this book is evidently inspired by it, with its cliquey group of friends and brilliant, captivating teacher.
While it takes some unpredictable turns, The
Truants is at its best in the build-up, when it captures how it feels to be young and dazzled by new places and people. Later, as it segues into a literary murder mystery, the threads of the story twist about so much it starts to fray. The author is playing with a lot of ideas – disappearances, betrayals, people who are not what they seem – and it makes for an interesting read but one that is far less tidy than the classic taut thriller.