Book of the week

GIRL IN SNOW DANYA KUKAFKA PICADOR, $35

Reviewed by Ken Strongman

Ibelieve that a crucial aspect of reading crime fiction (or any fiction) is that the characters are credible and it’s possible to identify with them. Plots can be fantastic and the atmosphere compelling, but if it is hard or, worse, impossible, to empathise with at least one of the protagonists, the story can become unfulfilling.

Girl in Snow is Danya Kukafka’s first novel and it is unquestionably a work of merit.

It begins with a teenage girl being found dead in the snow. The story then unfolds through the eyes and lives of three other members of the small American community in which she lives. Two of them, Cameron and Jade, are also teenagers at the same school as Lucinda, the dead girl, while the third, Russ, is a member of the local police.

The three perspectives are very different. Cameron is a loner, well across the Asperger spectrum, who, among other things, plays statues at night, standing motionless for hours, staring into other people’s lives (notably Lucinda’s).

Jade is a rebellious punk, with a drunken mother, a dislike of most of her contemporaries and a passion to become a writer.

And Russ has a confused and inhibited life, married unsatisfactorily to a young Mexican woman who has a crooked but religious zealot of a brother.

There is no doubt that Kukafka is a thoughtful and stylish writer who can penetrate the lives of her characters and see the world as they might.

Throughout the book, she manages to keep the tension reasonably taut about who might have killed Lucinda.

The denouement comes as a slight surprise, but does not quite convince. Perhaps, though, that it is a rather mundane outcome is appropriate for the community in which it is set.

Girl in Snow is a work of crime fiction that is possible to admire, but from a slight distance. In the end, the lack of a character with whom to identify, made it difficult for me, even though the characters were well drawn. The nearest I came was with Jade, the punk teenager. A little odd, perhaps, but it was her rebellious streak that appealed.

Kukafka will write more: she has the skill and the ability to provoke thought and to prompt reflection on the motives that drive us. She can also penetrate the minds and lives of her characters with some authenticity.

However, these characters are unusual without being compelling and the more “normal” characters are only touched on lightly. They remain a little obscure and this may well be why the eventual revelation does not quite satisfy.