25 January 2019

Review: THE STRANGER DIARIES, Elly Griffiths

  • this edition published by Quercus 2018
  • ISBN 978-1-78648-740-7
  • 408 pages
  • source: my local library
Synopsis (publisher)

THE TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR

THE RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

A dark story has been brought to terrifying life. Can the ending be rewritten in time?

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to tales of murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R.M. Holland, she teaches a short course on them every year. Then Clare’s life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R.M. Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer’s works somehow hold the key to the case.

Not knowing who to trust, and afraid that the killer is someone she knows, Clare confides her darkest suspicions and fears about the case to her journal. Then one day she notices some other writing in the diary. Writing that isn’t hers…

My Take

The narration in this story is from several different voices:
Clare Cassidy herself;
Harbinder, a former student at the school and is the detective sergeant carrying out the investigation into the death of Clare's friend and colleague Ella;
Georgia (Georgie), Clare's daughter and a student at the school;
The short story The Stranger written decades before by R.M. Holland in whose house the school is established;
Excerpts from the story are featured throughout the main story and the narrators change often.

This is a story about obsession. The murder victims appear to be linked by the fact they are teachers in the English faculty at the school.

This I think is the first stand-alone that I have read by Elly Griffiths who in 2016 was the recipient of the CWA Dagger in the Library for services to crime fiction.

Very readable.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES
4.6, THE JANUS STONE
4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END
4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES
4.8, DYING FALL- audio book
4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS - audio book
4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD - audio book
4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE
4.7, THE CHALK PIT
4.4, THE VANISHING BOX

2 comments:

Terra said...

I read Crossing Places and Janus Stone in her series and like her book; this one sounds good too.

Emma at Words And Peace / France Book Tours said...

Oh yes, I ran into this last October, sounds really good!

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