The all new 50 Books Challenge!
Title: Fault Lines by Natasha Cooper
Details: Copyright 1999, Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "When social worker Kara Huggate fails to turn up at court as star witness for a crucial case, barrister Trish Maguire knows something is very wrong. And sure enough, the police are waiting for her in chambers with news Kara has been brutally murdered.
In an ironic twist of fate, Trish receives a letter from Kara, posted the night of her death, asking for her help over the unfair dismissal of a colleague. Unable to refuse such a request, Trish decides to meet Kara's colleague, Blair Collons. However, discovered how paranoid and obsessive he is, she cannot believe his story-- or understand why Kara cared so much about him. But with the memory of Kara's compassion fresh in her mind, Trish finds herself sucked into Blair's unhappy story, with potentially devastating consequences..."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'll be honest. I didn't read the backcover too closely and thought "barrister" was "barista", and was thus quite confused when we meet the ostensibly main character frantically putting on her wig. I know considerably less about the UK legal system than I do the American one, but crime fiction is crime fiction right? Perhaps?
How I Liked It: I've talked before about something (a book, a movie, a TV show) being great right up until a certain point when it all goes south. But the same can happen in reverse! A TV show finally finds its footing (probably with some retooling), a movie finally clicks and picks up steam, and a book can actually become a page-turner.
That's.... not exactly what happened in this case, but we'll get to that.
The book opens with social worker Kara Huggate hearing sounds in her home and being convinced it's mice she has to kill (uh?). We realize it's actually an intruder and Shit's Getting Real. There's a bad scuffle and we're spared some of the details in the action, but Kara realizes she's going to die and apologies profusely to someone named Darlie. Who is Darlie?
Smashcut to harried barrister Trish Maguire hustling late into court and reassuring 15-year-old abuse victim Darlie Walker that her social worker would of course be there any moment. The social worker, Kara Huggate, is to provide character witness as Darlie testifies against a 45-year-old man that abused her. But Maguire gets word from the police that Huggate has been murdered and is questioned, and shortly after, receives a letter from Huggate asking her to hear out a wildly paranoid man (Blair Collons) she'd been helping and perhaps give him some legal advice. It's inadvertently a dying wish and Maguire knows it.
Meanwhile, we meet chief investigator Femur, a tenured detective working the Huggate case and not coming up with much. The usual squabbles and loyalties dot his team and their action in trying to solve the case runs with Maguire's action in, well, also trying to solve the case.
There's a load of red herrings and clues all over the place, including the truly creepy Huggate colleague Blair Collons (whose literal masturbatory fantasies and obsession with the dead social worker we're given access), organized crime, a serial rapist on the loose whose work seems very similar to Huggate's murder, a land deal scheme, and apparently Huggate had a secret lover.
Maguire starts being targeted by someone for asking questions, and her path collides with Femur's and they begin to work together.
They ultimately reach a conclusion and Huggate's murder is solved, and nearly all loose ends are tied up, save for what appears to be seeds for the fact this is an ongoing series, including Maguire's strained relationship with her estranged father, and her pushy boyfriend.
The book is so loaded down with potential suspects and leads that aren't really properly introduced or integrated into the main action that for the first three-fourths, it's almost unreadable. Add to that that while Maguire is ostensibly supposed to be the heroine, Femur is far more nuanced as a character and we get more insight into his decisions and thought processes. Some of this could be due to the fact this is apparently the second book in a series of books about Maguire and the author was taking some liberties, but we should have something more than we got.
The other characters we see independent of either Maguire or Femur aren't as established and therefore are less interesting. Some authors can pull off a side character being the main action for a few pages, even if we never hear from that character again. In this book, it's more of a "who on earth is this now and why should I care?" type of vibe. Add to the fact several of these are recurring (and several are not!) and trying to figure out who you're supposed to care about and keep straight gets exhausting.
While the book never becomes great or even very good, in the last fourth, it at least picks up the action and stops trudging and the payoffs start coming (and yes, it is possible to have continual payoffs throughout the book, not just the end). There is a rickety conclusion, but a conclusion that more or less ties up everything, even if it's a bit too neat of an explanation for all the loose ends.
Right up until it took a turn, I honestly asked myself if this book was possibly even worse than the last bad thriller I read, The Fifth Petal. That book, for its many, many, many faults, was at least somewhat compelling, even if the author didn't really do anything with the stories she was creating. I honestly can't see this being a series, since the main character Trish Maguire is honestly not that remarkable. She has friends, she has a relationship she questions with her boyfriend (more on him in a bit), she has the aforementioned estranged father, but there's really no way she goes about solving mysteries or even living life that really defines her as a character.
But as I said, this was apparently only the second of at least nine novels. Was Trish Maguire more established in the first book? Does she get better later on? Did the switch at the end of this book signify an overall switch in quality of the novels? Certainly a book series deserves as much consideration as at least a TV series that needs time to finesse itself. But from this book alone, reading none of the others, it almost doesn't seem worth finding out.
Notable: I wrestled with the question of is this book actually sexist or does it just have a lot of sexist characters? Seemingly every man in this book, be he murderer, boyfriend, cop, crooked cop, organized crime boss, or husband can't seem to go long without dropping some misogynist complaint about women when he isn't out and out sexually assaulting them. The surprisingly few women of the novel seem to take this in stride.
What may point to how sexism is portrayed is how it's handled. In a conversation with her boyfriend about the victim, Maguire remarks that Huggate had left a verbally abusive relationship. Quick content warning for some seriously disgusting bodyshaming and verbal abuse, and also victim-blaming and gaslighting.
“No wonder she left him.'
'Exactly. She said that she told him she hadn't realised he despised her so much, and she wasn't sure she could bear to live with someone who felt that way about her. He said she could do as she damn well pleased, that he'd fallen out of love with her years before and only stuck with her out of charity. Oh, yes, and he also told her that she bored him rigid in bed and out of it, that her bum was droopy and her tits were getting as wrinkled as pricked balloons.'
'Sounds as though she had pretty awful taste in men,' George said, too casually, as he helped himself to more risotto, scraping the rich brown brunt bits from the edge of the pan. Then he looked up. 'What's the matter?'
'You're making it HER fault. That's not fair.' Trish could see that George has found the stiffness in her voice and was irritated by it, but he couldn't have known that something like an unpeeled lychee was stuck in her throat.
'You said yourself that she'd lived with this Jed character for five years, Trish,' he said, sounding infuriatingly reasonable, 'and he sounds unspeakable. She didn't have to stay so long. Ergo, she must have had poor taste in men- or a masochistic streak five miles wide, and none of your descriptions have ever suggested that.'
Trish drank some wine, concentrating on her glass. The lychee wouldn't move and she wasn't doing to say anything else until she could be sure she'd sound normal.
'Oh, Trish, come off it.' George wasn't quite laughing at her, but he wasn't taking her seriously. 'I know she was your friend and I know she's dead - and that's miserable for you and worse for her - but that doesn't mean you have to ignore the laws of logic and start claiming she couldn't have contributed to anything that ever went wrong in her life. Now does it? It's not like you to be irrational and--'
'I just can't stand it when people blame the victim,' she snapped. 'Like those judges who say that a skimpily dressed woman out on her own at night has invited rape.'
'After eighteen months you ought to know me better than that." George's voice sounded odd after Trish's unusual harshness. His eyes had gone blank. He looked hurt. (pgs 41 and 42)
This is portrayed as a squabble between them, and Maguire is portrayed as overreacting ("unusual harshness") to someone trivializing blaming someone for an abusive relationship.
This book is over twenty years old. I know in the United States, considerable information about domestic violence (and how victims can feel like they can't leave and are often even told so repeatedly by their abusers) became public knowledge in the 1990s, due to a number of factors, including the widespread media coverage of the OJ Simpson trial. Public pushes for greater information became available and better laws went on the books. Someone with abusive partners (and before the passage quoted, Maguire mentions Huggate's abusive partner belittling her work constantly and her abilities) is seen as having been targeted by an abuser, not just "unlucky in love."
Portraying sexism as par for the course (in the book, one stalking victim seeking help isn't believed because she's unattractive and "old"... in her thirties, and thus, who would want to stalk her?) is one thing. Sexism is still par for the course on many levels, although it shouldn't be. But portraying trivializing abuse as merely an overreaction and lovers' spat is something quite another.
Additionally, the police force has a competent female constable with a "female lover" (that's the term used). Chief Investigator Femur "doesn't give a toss" about it and even finds it "easier" spending so much time with her (presumably she isn't attracted to men), but his male colleagues still "find it tough." Where there's a glimmer of some kind of progress is the fact she's mentioned that her partner is an actress, something the men apparently have a hard time wrapping their heads around, since it apparently defies a stereotype.
There's a curious little exchange when the female constable is given some investigative work with the victims of the serial rapist, something one of her male colleagues protests.
'Is that wise, Guv? Caroline will pick one of the girls, you know, and you don't want her to start something...
'Oh, grow up, Tony,' said Femur, with rare irritation. 'Just because she's a dyke it doesn't mean she's a lunatic - or insatiable. She's much less likely to make a pass than you are, or Bri. She's sorted, settled. She's not looking for anyone else.'
'Oh? I thought... have you met her, er...?'
'Yes.' Femur was grimly amused at his sergeant's mixture of curiosity and revulsion. 'She's a ravishing actress you'd give your eye-teeth for. Take it from me. Besides which, she's got a will of steel and a mind like a razor.'
'Actress, Guv?' HE looked astonished, presumably having expected a whiskery, dungarees-clad activist of some kind. 'Anyone famous?'
'Yes, Even you'd've heard of her, but don't even think about it. I'm not going to tell you. She's Caroline's story, not mine. Now, let's do some work.' (pgs 31 and 32)
The revelation that a lesbian (or bisexual woman) character doesn't conform to the stereotype wasn't exactly a bold move, even in the late '90s, and an "activist of some kind" is a... troubling line.
Final Grade: C
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