Death of a Mermaid
As seen:
By Lesley Thomson
avg rating
4 reviews
‘Lesley Thomson gets better and better’ Ian Rankin
When Freddy Power was eighteen, her father threw her out. Her sin had been to fall in love with a woman. Freddy waited for two decades to be invited back into the family. The summons never came.
But now, in the wake of her parents’ death, Freddy feels the call of home like a siren’s song. The trawlers emerging out of the mist. Fishermen unloading their catch down at the harbour. Her best friend, Mags, exploring the cliffs at sunset.
But when she arrives at Newhaven, after twenty-two years of silence, her brothers and her friends act like strangers. Then Mags goes missing, and old secrets – and old passions – are reignited. Freddy is determined to lead the hunt for Mags – even if it means confronting her past, and facing the truth about her family…
Reviews for Death of a Mermaid:
‘Catholic guilt, monstrous hypocrisy and all kinds of fishy business are explored in an atmosphere of creeping dread’ The Times
‘A truly brilliant book, full of atmosphere and a creeping sense of menace. Lesley Thomson lures you in with meticulously drawn characters and a matchless sense of place, and then you are caught in the jaws of a remorseless thriller’ Elly Griffiths
‘A strong sense of place, wonderfully woven with a cast of memorable characters’ Mari Hannah
‘Death of a Mermaid is a tense, beautifully written novel, with characters so well-crafted you expect them to walk off the page’ Rachael Blok
‘A powerful tale of dark secrets that fester in a small seaside town’ William Shaw
TweetReviews
Like other reviewers I thought I would enjoy this book. It was described as a thriller but unfortunately I found it to be very dull. It just didn’t seem to flow in my opinion and sadly I ended up giving up.
DNF.
I saw the gorgeous cover picture and thought "I'm really going to like this one".
Unfortunately this wasn't the case, and I was unable to connect with the characters or storyline. I got halfway through the book, but then decided I just wasn't interested enough to continue.
This book failed to deliver for me. Full of detail, but still it seemed rather flat. The story did not seem plausible to me either. This was not a difficult read, it just did not work for me and I would not recommend the novel to my friends.
Freddy, Mags, Toni and Karen all grew up in Newhaven and went to the local convent school. Freddy, Mags and Karen formed a “gang” called the Mermaids, because they all shared a love of the film The Little Mermaid. When Toni is asked to join the group, Karen is ousted. 22 years on and Karen, Toni and Mags are all still living in Newhaven. Freddy was kicked out of her parent’s home by her father and has not seen her family in the intervening years. When she gets a text from Mags saying that her Mum is ill, she decides to head home for a visit. When Newhaven turns into a crime scene, things start to get very complicated.
I’m afraid I’m going to start with the negative points as, for me, they outweighed the positive ones. The book had such a slow, dull start that I wasn’t at all sure I was going to make it to the end. However, I persevered and the pace did pick up but not enough to redeem itself. To be honest I found the whole thing a bit of a hard slog. The problem is that it is billed as a thriller extraordinaire, which creates an expectation that it is going to be very “thrilling” – it’s not. It’s more of a slow burner, with a greater emphasis on the characters and their complex circle of friendships than on the thriller itself. Given that this was the case I was surprised to find that, when I finally reached the end, I did not have a clear image in my head of any of the personalities involved, leading me to conclude that the character development, although lengthy was not particularly well done. I also found it confusing in places and this is a problem with a book in which I’m not totally invested because I don’t really care enough about either the characters or the plot to spend the time and the brain power untangling the various strands.
It does have its plus points. I think it is trying to be what I call an “onion” book – information about the friends’ relationships in the dim and distant past are drip-fed to the reader, like layers of an onion being peeled back. Each new revelation requires a reevaluation of events that we know about so far. This is quite an interesting, yet complex construction for a novel. Although I don’t think the author has been entirely successful, it is a brave thing to try. I don’t think this is a really bad book, I just don’t think it’s a particularly good one.
All in all I’m afraid that this book wasn’t really for me and I would therefore struggle to recommend it.
