A toxic tale of a small town
BONFIRE by Krysten Ritter (Hutchinson £12.99) HAVING left Barrens, Indiana, ten years earlier, Abby Williams, now an environmental lawyer, returns to her home town to follow up complaints against a big local plastics firm. The company has considerable influence in the town, so litigation will be a challenge.
Investigating whether the firm is polluting the land, Abby recalls the rash of illnesses that infected her classmates years earlier. Is there a connection?
Key to finding the truth is tracking down her one-time friend Kaycee Mitchell, one of the sufferers, who has disappeared. As Abby digs deeper, she is forced to confront her own ghosts.
The plot is packed with suspense and moves at a cracking pace.
This portrait of small-town life by Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones actress Ritter is spot on. Abby makes a terrific, kickass heroine who you’ll root for all the way. HEATHER, THE TOTALITY by Matthew Weiner (Canongate £14.99)
BOY falls for girl, boy pursues girl. How will it end? There are just four characters in this economically told tale by the originator of TV series Mad Men: pretty A-student Heather, her wealthy, unhappily married, neurotically protective parents, and labourer Bobby.
Bobby spots Heather when working on renovations to the Manhattan apartment where she lives. Which is fine, except that he also happens to be a psychopath.
In most such plots, this would be a reveal at the end of act two. But here, we know from the start that Bobby has killed his own mother without a scintilla of remorse — and that he decides to murder Heather at the very moment he sets eyes on her.
How will it end? That remains a compelling question all the way through this skilfully structured novella.
THE BOY MADE OF SNOW by Chloe Mayer (W&N £14.99)
IT’S 1944. Nine-year-old Daniel and his mother Annabel live in a quiet English village, while his father is away fighting in the war.
Without friends, the boy populates his world with the stuff of the classic fairy tales he loves, frequently blurring the lines between fact and fantasy. The arrival of a group of German PoWs, brought to work at a nearby farm, changes everything.
For Annabel, one of them, Hans, offers an awakening from the tedium of her existence. For Daniel, he’s a character from his magic world brought to life.
But Hans has his own agenda, propelling them towards tragedy.
If Daniel’s voice didn’t always ring quite true to me, the novel wins through on both the evocation of the period and the setting, brilliantly capturing the isolation of mother and son, making the awful inevitability of what follows extra affecting.