Reading CORNER
With best-selling author Nicky Pellegrino Death of a scarfie A student’s fatal fall rings alarm bells in Dunedin
Thrillers need to grab you from the very first sentence and this one certainly does that. A young law student is found dead on the pavement below her open window. Did Ashleigh jump or was she pushed?
This question is at the centre of a story that is more than just a crime novel.
The Night She Fell is also a love story. And it doesn’t shy away from weightier themes like mental illness and personality disorder. There is a lot going on, but Eileen Merriman’s prose is pacey and pared down and, as with her previous books, it makes for a page-turning read.
Set in Dunedin, the story is told mostly by Ashleigh’s boyfriend, medical student Xander, and it moves back and forth in time between the period before the fatal fall and events afterwards.
Very quickly it becomes clear that theirs was far from a trouble-free relationship.
Ashleigh is beautiful, smart and a nasty piece of work.
She has power over Xander and, as everyone around them can see, the way she treats him isn’t okay. Still, he is unable to break free because her family has done so much for him. Even while he’s forging a closer bond with her flatmate Ronnie, the past he shares with Ashleigh has him trapped.
For me, the middle part of the story did flag a bit.
The Xander/Ashleigh relationship gets repetitive – just dump her, I wanted to scream. Also, despite the number of people that Ashleigh gets offside with, I managed to guess whodunnit reasonably early on, so there were no big twists or surprises.
While this novel is designed to be adult fiction, it still skews very young. The age of the characters, their approach to life and the situations they get themselves into, all seem relatable to a younger readership.
Eileen is brilliant at diving inside the heads of young adults and showing what makes them tick. Student life is authentically portrayed. And the more you get to know Ashleigh, the more sympathy you feel for those who have to live with her. An original and thoughtprovoking relationship thriller.