Masterpiece of plotting
WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA? Dervla McTiernan HarperCollins
Dervla McTiernan is an Irishborn thriller writer now living in Australia. What Happened to Nina? is set in the present time in the country town of Waitsfield, Vermont, just south of the US border with Canada. Nina Fraser and Simon Jordan were high school friends. Early on, their relationship became a love affair, even after they attended universities far apart. Nina’s parents, Leanne and Andy, are modest middle class, whereas Simon’s, Rory and Jamie, are nouveau riche. Simon’s father owns and manages a successful engineering business. The Jordans live in a mansion and have recently bought a large parcel of land at Stowe, a winter ski and summer trail resort.
At the start of the novel, Simon and Nina are enjoying each other’s company during their varsity vacation at the Stowe house. They are both experienced climbers and decide to make a fairly dangerous ascent, which they do successfully. As they abseil down from the summit, something goes wrong with Nina’s rope. She falls, not enough to seriously damage herself, but she is sure that Simon has caused the accident. The pair fall out and that evening decide to end their relationship. Simon leaves for Waitsfield. Nina will call a friend to pick her up.
Nina never arrives home. Eventually, the police are called.
McTiernan tells the story from different points of view. This makes for a rich tapestry of narrative material, where the characters of those involved can also be seen from a variety of angles. Simon’s mother Jamie, for example, a former waitress now married to money, is very sensitive to her social standing, and unsure of the future of her marriage to a cold fish, a workaholic fixated on commercial success. She loves her only child Simon, who has been overindulged and emotionally smothered by a needy mother.
When Nina does not show up, suspicions fall on Simon. His father uses the services of a socialmedia manipulation company to make Nina’s mother appear mentally unhinged and her father Andy a paedophile. McTiernan is at pains to highlight the weaknesses in the justice system since the swift development of social media. Our world has changed, and guilt and innocence can be bought.
In addition, she contrasts the methodical, necessarily slow, work of the police, with the more volatile behaviours of those closely caught up with a possible crime.
McTiernan’s novel never loses momentum. It is a masterpiece of plotting. The focus is not so much in solving a crime as in the parents’ defence of their children. Highly recommended.