The Wicked Girls

by Alex Marwood

On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two eleven-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since that dark day so many years ago. Now with new, vastly different lives—and unknowing families to protect—will they really be able to keep their wicked secret hidden?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Audiobook

378 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 2008

About the author

Alex Marwood is a former journalist who worked extensively across the British press. Her first novel, The Wicked Girls, achieved widespread acclaim and international bestsellerdom. It was shortlisted for ITW, Anthony and Macavity awards, was included in Stephen King's Ten Best Books of the Year list, and won the prestigious Edgar Award. The Killer Next Door, her second novel, won the coveted Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, was nominated for the Anthony and Barry. The Darkest Secret, the tale of the disappearance of young Coco, met with critical and reader acclaim. The Poison Garden will be released in 2019. She has also been shortlisted for numerous other crime writing awards and her first two novels have been optioned for the screen. Marwood lives in south London and is working on her next novel.

Reviews

[Stephen King]

Obviously, 2013 was the year of girls gone wild. Bel and Jade are the 11-year-old wicked girls, so dubbed by the British press when they’re convicted of murdering a 4-year-old left in their care. Finally paroled, they’re told they must never see each other again. Years later, with new lives, they come together in a run-down seaside amusement park where a killer is running wild. The suspense keeps the pages flying, but what sets this one apart is the palpable sense of onrushing doom.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a heck of a lot of crime. Far more, in fact, than I enjoy. This book is that rare exception: a crime novel that follows all the rules of the genre but is still surprising. A crime novel where the crime takes a backseat to the characters, and is all the better for it. Marwood, a journalist, writes with authority: clear, fearless prose that refuses to march to the tune of so much commercial crime fiction. She won't deliver us to a point of reassurance, nor will she sugar the pill of ambiguity, which for me is the best reason to love this book, the ending of which is perfectly - painfully - suspended for our judgement, and our mercy.

If all that makes this sound like heavy work for a reader, it's not. The story rattles at a great pace, peopled by likeable and unlikeable characters, dollops of plot twists and surprises along the way. But there are lots of great plotters out there. What's rare is to find a writer that makes us really think and ask questions, of ourselves and our society. This story will disturb your sleep, not because of the monsters it introduces to us, but because of the monsters we already know.

Highly recommended.

Full review is here: http://sarah-crawl-space.blogspot.co....

[Donna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently, 25 years ago, two 11 year old girls committed a crime, possibly causing the death of a younger child. The first 3/4 of this book alludes to something of that nature. After being released from their respective juvenile facilities, each girl does her best to blend into every day life by creating for themselves the dullest existence ever and then complaining about their choices. One day, they meet again by chance and nothing much happens. During all of this, a serial killer, or maybe more than one serial killer are killing women. Possibly by telling them the story of these two women which likely caused them to stab themselves. I didn't make it to the end. I don't really care how it ends.

The characters seemed all the same, I stayed confused throughout most of the book about who was who. None of the characters were likable or even remotely interesting making it impossible to make even the slightest connection. I thought that the story lacked any kind of cohesive plot and the story itself was simply boring.

My recommendation - Skip this one.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting enough premise: the lives of two young girls found guilty of murdering another child intersect in adulthood under more murderous circumstances. Anyone from the UK will immediately feel the resonances with the horrifying Bulger case, but this story has none of the darkness of that reality, if anything it sucks the horror right out of it by being a rather dull recounting of how hard they’ve found their worlds since.

Perhaps my apathy comes from a lack of connection with either of the characters, or even more from the incredibly unrealistic and ridiculous plot once they meet again. Right from the outset the idea that a child killer trying to hide her past decided to be a journalist seemed somewhat strange- your picture literally in the newspaper every day? And if you though that was the worst of it, there’s killers galore in small coastal town Whitmouth. Midsomer needs to watch its back. On top of all that, it commits the highest sin of being rather boring.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve put this book on my mystery/thriller shelf, but there’s so much more to it than that. In the summer of 1986, 4 year old Chloe’s body is discovered and 11 year olds Bel and Jade are found guilty of her murder, branded as pure evil by an appalled nation. After spending a decade in young offender’s institutions they are given new identities and freed, albeit under life-long police supervision.

In the present day, cleaner Amber stumbles across the third victim of the ‘Seaside Strangler,’ and journalist Kirsty is sent to the resort to report on it. The two women meet and recognise each other as Bel and Jade. Shocked and scared, they vow to avoid each other to protect their new families and police conditions. But someone knows, and with the press and police all over the holiday town on the trail of the Strangler, it’s only a matter of time before their past catches up with them.

Told mainly in the present, the narration also takes us back to 25 years earlier, giving us an hour by hour account of what happened on that fateful day, slowly revealing the full and tragic truth.

What sets this book apart from a standard mystery/thriller is that it's character led and makes us ask questions of ourselves. We learn about Bel and Jade, and Amber and Kirsty: their childhoods and upbringings, the differing support they received in the detention centres, their adjustment to rehabilitation, the path choices they take, the relationships they make, the lies they must tell, the secrets they must keep, and the feelings of guilt and fear they constantly live with.

A haunting, compelling, thought-provoking, moving read, whose many questions about morality, humanity and society will stay with me a long time.

NB: several GR reviews give away the big twists with no spoiler warnings, so proceed with caution.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost always start a book without knowing much of what it is about. I tend to chose books from recommendations, nice book covers (horrible, I know), by seeing others that enjoy similar books as me rate highly, or as an assignment. What I am basically getting at here is that I don't start books with any expectations, high or low.

I've read other reviews on this particular book and some people say that it wasn't as good as they anticipated, etc. and so I feel that going in blind gave me an advantage. I've also noticed that some reviews said that they couldn't connect with the characters which I totally felt the opposite. To me, the characters in this book were well developed and not superficial in any sense. Also, seeing that this is a psychologically thriller-type, I definitely did not expect it to be a happy book with a happy ending.

It's hard to write a review for books such as this because there is a risk of giving too much information away. What I will say is that I thought it was well written and after a couple of days having finished it, I still have a strong sense of the characters within.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

***MINOR SPOILER***

Note to writers: STOP killing defenseless dogs for no reason other than shock value. It's lazy, it makes me disinclined to finish your book, and you ALWAYS telegraph your intentions as soon as you introduce the dogs.

Even besides the poor puppies, this book fell flat for me. The characters were uninteresting, the mystery was muddled, and the "twist" ending was disappointing. I've read quite a few books with this same premise and found them preferable.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbing, really disturbing but a good read, enjoyed it.

I will keep an eye out for more Alex Marwood books.

Five stars.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started off thinking this would be a formulaic crime thriller that would provide me with a bit of cheap enjoyment but wouldn't be particularly well-written. Then I got excited when I realised it had more depth and detail than your average mystery, and thought it had the potential to be excellent. Sadly, it went in all the wrong directions after that - those 'good points' actually ended up dragging it down and making the plot feel clunky, if still somewhat compelling.

It's a two-pronged story, revolving around two women who were convicted of murdering a young child while they were still children themselves. Now released, and living under new identities, they are brought back into contact with one another as a result of an investigation into a new spate of murders. Following a common format, the book switches between the present (the dominant plotline) and past (explaining what the girls' crime actually was, and how it came to happen). The character development is good, and most people involved in the story, particularly the protagonists, are far from two-dimensional. Some are certainly stereotypes, but the author does a good job of expanding them beyond that. A key strength is the setting: Whitmouth, a typical down-at-heel Northern seaside town, portrayed in all its seedy, grubby glory, is horribly believable.

After a first half which was a little slow but very engrossing, I found the remainder of the book to be almost the opposite: fast-moving but less interesting, and only gripping in the most basic of ways. The pacing seemed off, somehow, all the way through the story, especially with regards to the subplot about Vic not being what he seemed at first, and the reveal of him being the 'strangler'. I found the past section of the story confusing: jumping back and forth through the day of the crime, it's inconsistent, and the chapters aren't frequent enough for it to be entirely clear what's happening.

I also really disliked what I felt was the implication that Amber's life mattered less because she wasn't married and hadn't had children. I don't think for a second that this was some sort of message the author was trying to send deliberately - but nevertheless, Kirsty (despite being completely responsible for Martin's death) was granted an escape because she had a 'reason to live', ie a family. Meanwhile, it seemed Amber might as well end up in prison because she had 'nothing', despite her lack of involvement in the final murder, and the fact that she had already served her sentence for her original crime.

All in all, The Wicked Girls didn't turn out to be much better than those formulaic crime thrillers I initially compared it to. If you're after a trashy mystery, it's a decent choice - it's dark, gritty and full of interesting detail, but I felt it raised my hopes at the beginning and then couldn't really live up to them.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books with a fairly straightforward plot that's a vehicle to say a lot of things about a lot of topics: how much of one's fate is set in childhood, parenting, relationships, the seemingly inescapable crucible of environment, class differences, the media, emotional and physical abuse, stalkers, and of course, child murderers.

The Wicked Girls is set in England, and seems to have been inspired by the murder of James Bulger, a three-year-old boy who was abducted, tortured, and murdered by a pair of ten-year-olds. In The Wicked Girls, the victim and the perpetrators are all girls, and of course, there's more to the story.

Annabel Oldacre and Jade Walker come from opposite sides of the tracks; Annabel's family is upper-class and wealthy, while the Walkers are known throughout their community as the British equivalent of trailer trash. Annabel and Jade by chance strike up a friendship one day, but by the end of the day, a little girl is dead and the two of them soon become the most notorious and hated eleven-year-olds in England.

Twenty-five years later, the two of them are both living under new identities, but under lifelong probationary conditions which include monthly check-ins, and an absolute prohibition against contacting one another ever again.

Jade is now "Kirsty," a journalist, and Annabel is "Amber," a cleaner at a seedy amusement park in a seaside resort town. This reversal in expected outcomes — the girl from the bad family is now an educated, middle-class career woman with a family, while the girl from the posh family is now a weary, friendless cleaning woman — is the first statement the book makes about how the circumstances of one's childhood do not predetermine the outcome.

It turns out that Jade, the girl without a future, was sent to a relatively progressive institution where she was actually given an education, and when she was released on parole, was able to make a life for herself. Meanwhile, Annabel, whom the media had labeled the "dominant" member of the pair, on the assumption that the rich girl must have been pure evil while one could only expect the poor girl to have a broken moral compass, spent her years in juvenile detention in a hellhole. She emerges basically broken and hopeless.

When a serial killer begins killing tourists in Amber's home town, Kirsty comes to cover the story. The two of them run into each other, recognize one another, and the secrets the two of them have kept hidden their entire lives immediately threaten to spill out, no matter how hard they try to avoid each other.

The Wicked Girls has a nicely twisting plot and a range of secondary characters, each of them bringing up other issues, from Amber's emotionally manipulative boyfriend to Kirsty's struggles to support their family with her husband "excessed" out of a job in his mid-40s, the minimum wage workers at the amusement park that Amber has been put in charge of, the abused girl she takes in only to be betrayed, and of course, the media, which just like twenty-five years ago, seizes on lurid details and interviews with unreliable people to construct a narrative that will sell papers and generate moral outrage, whether or not it actually bears any resemblance to the truth.

Watching two women whose lives were destroyed as children try to reconstruct an existence under the constant fear of discovery, even by their own families, and then see it all come unraveled once again, makes this book both a suspenseful psychological thriller and a tragedy even before the climax.

It's not quite 5 stars — while I liked the story and the characters, something about the writing just didn't grab me enough to make me love it. But this is still a pretty good "social" novel under the crime/thriller surface, and I'll look for more books by Alex Marwood.

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started this book I was surprised about how in depth the story was and actually found it very difficult to put down. It was very detailed and felt very realistic, more than other books like this I have read.

From the beginning it felt as though Amber was the only "bad guy" though Kirsty also participated in the murder of Chloe. I found the actual murder of Chloe boring, as the whole thing was a complete accident.

One character that annoyed me was Chloe's sister, Debbie. After recognising Amber in the newspaper, she told the press that Amber really was Annabel, one of the murderers of Chloe. What irritated me was that Debbie did not seem to feel guilty about her sisters death at all, and was only angry at Jade and Bel. After all, when Chloe died she was supposed to be in Debbie's care, and it was her who left her 4 year old sister with two 11 year olds who she barely knew, just to be with Darren. Personally, I think that there should have been more emphesis made on her part in the murder.

Also, I found the ending awful. Amber took responsibility for another murder that Kirsty committed, just because Kirsty had a husband and children. Amber's life should have been just as important as that of Kirsty, though through the whole of the book she was worse off,bad detention centre, awful boyfriend, bad job, less money, worse looks.

I would have liked Kirsty to have at least told her family the truth, for Amber's sake, but of course that didn't happen. I found it difficult to believe that she got married without even telling the truth.

At the end you find out that Amber was abused by her step father, though nobody seemed to care about that and I think there should have been more detail into what happend there.

All in all though, I found this a gripping and exciting book though there were parts that could have been better.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really made me stop and think. We all have our opinions on murderers, child killers in particular. And living in Liverpool, Venables and Thompson are never far from my thoughts when I pass the places that their victim was taken on his final journey. There's been plenty of speculation about the whys and the wherefores of the case , and usually little sympathy is afforded to the killers.
This book made me think a little further into what happens when children kill children. The everlasting consequences to the victims family, the killers' families and the killers themselves. Can they ever move on and become successfully rehabilitated or are their lives destined to remain bound to their crime?
The Wicked Girls is a great read - thought prvoking, gripping to the fast paced yet surprising ending , and above all , sad. Read it, you won't regret it.

[Alisi ☆ wants to read too many books ☆ · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Wicked Girls? This book should've been called The Boring Girls. This is me when I finished this book:



OMG, this book was so dull. There wasn't any part of the 'novel' that wasn't boring. The flashbacks that supposedly tell their "infamous" crime were boring. There is supposedly a serial killer or two killing women and leaving them in places where Amber (Bel) trips over, AND IT'S STILL BORING.

We get this tiny snippet of a trial scene at the beginning then we're shoved into a soap opera that we don't care about.

It took me chapters! CHAPTERS! to figure out that WTF was going on with that 'stalker'. I could care less. Why am I reading his POV? The gal he's stalking has no relevance (or barely any) to the story. The girl isn't one of the POV characters. She's just a lowlife complainer. Why the hell would he latch onto her?

It's sad because I was thinking 'go ahead, kill her -- at least I won't be forced to read through this dribble.'

Their reunion was stupid -- beyond stupid. It was as if the author knew he had no actual story or tension so he had to create the drama. So, it's like, Jade screaming for Bel 'Hey! TALK TO MEH! HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER!' where everyone can see it and then, when Bel calls her (why the fuck else would you force your number down her throat if you didn't want her to call Genius), we get treated to more completely asinine 'OMG! WHAT IF THEY FIND OUT I'M JADE?! EVERYONE WOULD HATES MEH! WUT THEN?!?!?!11!!!ONE!!'

I mean, really... How can you have these girls literally tripping over the dead bodies and still make it so utterly dull that you have to skip ahead.

I was reduced to: "Oh, a dead body! Is it Bel or Jade?! I think that would be the only way this snore-fest could redeem itself... Oh, no. Just someone no one knows at all and of which has absolutely nothing to do with anything because, hey, first time we see her. Whatever." *skip ahead*

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Check out my other reviews at Little Miss Bookmark!

Oh, where to start. This one just didn't do it for me. At all. To be honest, I couldn't find one thing that I liked about the novel except the first part when the lost and found stuff was getting divided up at Funnland. That was really it.

I didn't find any kind of connection with any of the characters. I don't even really know if I could tell you one trait each of them has ... the characters didn't seem deep or realistic at all. And that was when I could keep the characters straight. I found it to be a little confusing because I didn't know much about anyone, so they all just seemed to meld together into one big, confusing mess. With every page that went by, I kept thinking that I would eventually feel ... something ... for any of the characters and I just didn't. I couldn't care less about what was happening.

Now, I enjoy a good mystery. Especially the ones that refer back to something that happened years ago ... which is why I was so interested in this novel to begin with. But again, I was let down. It was a crash and burn type of situation for me. With the blurb, you're led to believe that there is some heinous crime that these two girls committed. And this is a bit of a spoiler but it wasn't some heinous crime. It just wasn't. The ending was not that great either. It's not that a book has to end a certain way in order for me to like it ... I've read tons of books that ended in this piss poor way and I respected the novel even more for that kind of ending ... (Divergent). But I just couldn't respect the novel more. I ended up resenting it.

Basically, the whole novel was just ... meh. That's it. Meh. I don't believe I'll be picking up another novel by this author again.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark and disturbing. Follows the life of two child murderers. What was in their background that led two girls who only met that day to become vilified and tried as the murderers of a young girl? The book goes back and forth, telling the story of the girls in back-flashes and the now, when they have changed their names and have new lives.

While at times I sympathized with some of the characters, I was never really drawn to them. Mixing a serial killer in the present brings the two young woman back together again,. This was a little too much of a coincidence and I am not sure I liked how this was done. Would someone who was hiding from their old life, become a journalist? It was different though and I applaud the author for that. Maybe just not my kind of story.

[Patty · Rating 1 out of 5]

It just never really got my attention and it never seem to go anywhere.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 2 out of 5]

A suspense novel with two intersecting stories. In the past, two 11 year old girls were charged with murdering a younger child. Years later, they are both living under new names and hoping to hide their secret from their families and neighbors. One, Kirstie, is a journalist; the other, Amber, works as a cleaner for a tacky amusement park at a rundown seaside resort town. They meet by chance when Kirstie is sent to the town to report on a serial killer.

Good stuff: interesting premise and character study. It kind of reminded me of some of Ruth Rendell's books, with a lot of the same elements: a close look at not particularly likeable characters living on the margins of society. A fascination with the inevitable stream of consequences set into motion by a violent act. There was a lot to work with.

Still, it didn't quite come together for me. There were too many characters, including a whole subplot that cluttered up the story. The author frequently switched POV, sometimes even telling a scene from the POV of a random passerby that was not heard from again before or since. Instead of slowly building up suspense, the story just kept getting bogged down.

When I'm reading a just OK book, the ending really makes or breaks it for me. I thought this one kind of fizzled. If the story is about how the two women have to get by for the rest of their lives after committing a childhood crime, then it's kind of disappointing to get to the end of the book and read that it was basically an accident. They spend their whole childhoods in prison, and even incite a lynch mob years later when Amber's identity gets out, because a little girl they were watching fell over a fence and died, and they panicked? At least that was my take on it.

[Original Doll (Lea Martinuš) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davne 1986.godine dogodilo se stravično ubojstvo četverogodišnjakinje, a dvije nešto starije djevojčice proglašene su krivima za ubojstvo.
Opisane su kao “čisto zlo” te su im nakon godina provedenih u popravnim institucijama dati novi identiteti. Iako na doživotnoj uvjetnoj, dobile su novu priliku za normalan život uz uvjet da se više nikada ne sretnu.
Dvadeset i pet godina kasnije misteriozna ubojstva serijskog ubojice povezat će novinarku i čistačicu u zabavnom parku. Iako odluče kloniti se jedna druge, njihovi putevi neprestano se isprepliću te ne slute kakve komplikacije će im to donijeti. Hoće li biti raskrinkane?

Priča uglavnom prati aktualne događaje iz sadašnjosti, no također se vraća i u prošlost gdje je malo-pomalo prepričan koban dan kada je mala Chloe ubijena a životi dviju djevojčica zauvijek su promijenjeni.
Što je dovelo do stravičnog događaja i tko je kriv?

Knjiga je vrlo interesantna i teško se odvojiti od nje. Ipak, nije pisana kao klasičan psihološki triler iako sadrži sve elemente istog. Upravo ona kraća poglavlja koja objašnjavaju događaje kobnog dana iz djetinjstva su ona koja daju nevjerojatne doze napetosti priči koja slijedi sadašnjost.
Tako svako poglavlje sadrži neko iznenađenje koje neminovno tjera na čitanje i dovodi do apsolutno fantastičnog raspleta obiju priča koje pratimo, kad se napokon povezuju i daju cjelovitu sliku. Životi likova opisani su do sitnih detalja a pošto ih pratimo od najranijeg djetinjstva psihološka je karakterizacija vrhunski odrađena pa pojašnjava svaku njihovu reakciju, bojazan i postupak. Razina napetosti koja raste u njima toliko je visoka da ćete se osjećati kao da ste jedan od likova knjige i na momente će vas obuzeti očaj, panika, beznadnost, što knjigu čini sjajnom jer priču u cijelosti možete proživjeti kroz likove. Veliki dio vremena provela sam pitajući se koliko je kazneni sustav pošten. Jedan od likova nakon svega ima odličan život, dok drugi ispašta, a sve iz razloga jer nije imala sreće. Isto vrijedi i u životu općenito. Netko se nekažnjeno izvlači dok se na drugome sve lomi. Potom ono što se mnogi pitamo – može li se osoba uistinu promijeniti? Također se postavlja i pitanje koliko daleko smo sposobni ići kako bi sakrili mračne tajne i zaštitili one koje volimo...

“Odjednom mu više ne želi reći. Ne želi mu reći jer ne zna kako želi da reagira. Ne zna može li podnijeti njegovu sućut ili to da ju ne dobije.”

Ovo je odlična knjiga koja sadrži sve što volim: napetost i neizvjesnost od prve do zadnje stranice, odličnu fabulu koja na momente prožima jezom te zaplet i rasplet događaja koji svakako potiču da se zamislite nad važnim životnim pitanjima.

https://www.facebook.com/210901922419...

[Rainz ❤️rainnbooks❤️(on a break) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't say I really loved this story but I liked it for it's harsh depiction of the cruelty that may sometimes hide inside a child's mind and that sometimes a small action fuelled by rage and anger can have unforgivable consequences. The wicked girls have grown up and circumstances have forced them to meet after 25 years and life has not been fair to Annabel. She's working as a cleaner for a amusement carnival show in the town of Whitmouth where a serial killer is on the loose. Jade has however managed to make something out of her life with a husband and kids but it's Annabel's life that made me feel sad and sorry.
The ending didn't sit well with me, yes one would definitely expect a heart breaking end with the kind of poor luck that Bel as Amber seemed to be facing, even then any story that ends with such resonant melancholy makes me wish that I hadn't read it in the first place. The Wicked Girls is a good thriller, but wonder why all the children shown in the book are without any kindness to a 4-yr old girl?

[Jennifer M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough subject matter. Well written. Probably round to 3.5 stars if possible. I think the audio probably held my interest better than reading alone would have done. Hard not to end up feeling sorry for these girls in the end. Sad tale of girls that didn’t have much chance at happiness despite their opposite social status.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 STARS
This was...lackluster, to say the least. For such an interesting premise (young killer girls!) this was beyond boring at times. I had to listen to over half the audiobook before anything picked up. It followed their mundane lives and barely focuses on the current murders occurring. The two main characters cross paths and when it is revealed which girl is which, I had a hard time keeping them straight. Their personalities just didn't match their younger selves, and honestly the whole crime they committed seemed a far stretch to me and to be considered the worst young killers ever? hmmmm, probably not.
If this had spent less time talking about their mundane lives and worrying over whether or not anyone knew who they were and spent more time in the action of the murders going on around them like the ending did, it would have been a far more interesting story.
Overall, I just felt let down and disappointed by the reveals and the weird open ending.

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But let's face it: society doesn't really care who it blames, as long as it blames someone”
― Alex Marwood, The Wicked Girls


This book is as much a commentary on the media as it is a psychological thriller. I did love the book although I found it to be one of the darkest reads I'd read in years. It also takes awhile to get going so give it time. This one is a slow burn.



For some reason I have always loved books..and movies..that had an amusement park as a backdrop. But Wicked Girls is deceptive. This is not your average thriller. I would not really call it a mystery either although there is some of that. But basically it is a character study of two women who made serious mistakes, the different paths they chose to take in life and how those choices ultimately come back to haunt them as well as bring them back together.

To say I was impressed with the writing is putting it mildly. I read many dark books but this one is at the top of the list when it comes to that aspect.

I also, honestly could not give it the full five stars because there is some animal killings that turned me off greatly. I realize authors use them for the story but that did bring the book down a bit in my eyes. There are so many other devices that could have been used. I always take off a star when I see that in books especially where it isn't needed and it was not needed here. Simply put the book is great enough to be fine without any plot devices. I think the reader would have felt the horror of the book regardless.

This book is an evisceration of the media and of peoples' perceptions versus reality and the tragedy that can lead to. It is an extraordinary and heartbreaking read.

So in summing up..this is a bleak dark story where some of the characters seem to cry out from the pages. As in the case of all good or great books it left a lasting impression on me and I'll not soon forget it.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zwei Mädchen, 11 Jahre alt, lernen sich vor 25 Jahren kennen. Am Ende des Tages sind sie verantwortlich für den Tod eines vierjährigen Mädchens und haben auch ihre eigenen Leben für immer zerstört. Welche Verantwortung hatten sie zu tragen, welche konnten sie tragen?
Obschon Bel und Jade aus verschiedenen sozialen Schichten kommen, haben sie doch eines gemeinsam: Eltern, die sich nicht genug um ihre Kinder kümmern und froh sind, wenn die Kinder, auf sich allein gestellt, unbeaufsichtigt durchs Gemeinwesen streifen und nicht zur Last fallen. Dass die Mädchen völlig damit überfordert sind, eine quengelige Vierjährige zu beaufsichtigen, ist vollkommen klar und führt zur befürchteten Katastrophe.
Anders als in Deutschland liegt die Grenze zur Strafmündigkeit in England bei 10 Jahren. Und so können und werden Jade und Bel hart bestraft. Sie verbringen ihre Jugendjahre in geschlossenen Einrichtungen und werden schließlich, ausgestattet mit neuen Identitäten, unter massiven Auflagen in die Freiheit der englischen Gesellschaft entlassen: Sie haben sich monatlich bei ihren Bewährungshelfern zu melden, müssen jeden Wohnsitzwechsel anzeigen und dürfen sich niemals wieder sehen (nicht, dass sie daran Interesse hätten).
Sollte die Öffentlichkeit je ihre wahren Identitäten erfahren, bliebe nur die Flucht unter Aufgabe der mühsam aufgebauten kleinbürgerlichen Existenz. Und wer könnte ein größeres Interesse an solchen Enthüllungen haben, als die Presse?
Alex Marwood ist selbst Journalistin und weiß, wovon sie schreibt. In ihrer Laufbahn hat sie von sehr ähnlich gelagerten Fällen gelesen und weiß, was Erwachsenen blüht, die als Kinder zu „Mördern“ geworden sind. Die Hilflosigkeit einer Gesellschaft, die wider besseres Wissen auf drakonische Strafen setzt, ohne die Eltern der Delinquenten in die Pflicht zu nehmen und die Skandalpresse, die ihre Leser skrupellos aufhetzt und der es nicht um Wahrheit geht, das sind Themen, die die Autorin wohltuend nicht breit tritt, die aber beim Lesen präsent sind.
Dabei beginnt der Thriller mit einer Serie von Frauenmorden in einem drittklassigen Badeort an der englischen Küste. Die Geschehnisse führen dazu, dass sich Jade und Bel nach einem Vierteljahrhundert wieder begegnen. Bel, die jetzt Amber heißt, arbeitet als Reinigungskraft im ortsansässigen Vergnügungspark, während Jade mehr Glück hatte und unter dem Namen Kirsty als Journalistin tätig ist. Fast mit der Unausweichlichkeit einer griechischen Trägödie nimmt das Unglück seinen Lauf, zuerst noch langsam und für den Leser undurchschaubar, dann aber immer schneller und mit furchtbarer Zwangsläufigkeit. Die Spannung, die sich auf die zunächst für einen Thriller zu erwartende Frage richtet, wer der Frauenmörder sein mag, verlagert sich immer weiter in Richtung der beiden Frauen, deren Existenzen mehr und mehr bedroht sind durch das grelle Scheinwerferlicht, das wegen der Morde auf alles und jeden fällt.
Dass sich das so gut liest, spannend ist und vor allem spannend bleibt, ist der Fähigkeit von Alex Marwood geschuldet, vergleichbar durchaus mit Stewart O´Nan und Stephen King, interessante und glaubwürdige Charaktere zu schaffen, an deren Leben der Leser Anteil nimmt. Abseits von Markenartikeln, gut bezahlten Jobs und Bilderbuchfamilien haben sich Bel und Jade ihre Leben aufgebaut, in denen Glück nur in homöopathischen Mengen vorkommt. Dass sie darüber nicht jammern, dass ihnen Larmoyanz fremd ist, ermöglicht dem Leser, Sympathie für diese so untypischen Helden zu entwickeln, die verurteilte Mörderinnen sind, selbst zugleich aber Opfer einer Gesellschaft werden, in der Verlogenheit und Gewalt viele Gesichter haben. Und mancher Nachbar und Staatsbürger ist moralisch kaum weniger angreifbar als die verurteilten Mörderinnen, auf die ein jeder herabzublicken berechtigt ist.
WICKED GIRLS ist ein gut geschriebener Thriller, der Wert auf genaue Beobachtungen und Details legt. Glaubwürdigkeit rangiert vor an den Haaren herbeigezogenen Spannungselementen und wer Romantik und ein Happy End sucht, wird unzufrieden mit dem Buch sein.


(Notizen - Whitmouth ist ein drittklassiger Badeort; wer hier wohnt, sieht älter aus, als er ist. Und wenn hier Verbrechen geschehen, freuen sich die Zeitungsleser, dass sie woanders leben und sich die höhren Immobilienpreise gerechnet haben. Man schaut herunter auf die, die hier leben (müssen).
Für Amber Gordon ist Whitmouth zum Zufluchtsort geworden, hier hat sie sich mit ihrem Lebensgefährten Vic eine Existenz aufbauen können.
Aber ausgerechnet im Spiegelkabinett des Vergnügungsparks, in dem Amber dem Reinigungstrupp vorsteht, findet sie die Leiche einer jungen Frau, die dritte Ermordete der Saison.
Durch die Morde an den Teenagern sieht sie nach 25 Jahren erstmals Kirsty wieder, die als Journalistin nach Whitmouth kommt.
Kirsty Lindsay und Amber Gorden verbindet ein furchtbares Geheimnis: Als Teenager waren sie für den Tod eines Mädchens verantwortlich.
Annabel Oldacre, jetzt Amber Gordon (zusammenlebend mit Vic Cantrell), und
Jade Walker, jetzt Kirsty Lindsay, verheiratet mit Jim.
Ironischerweise hat die unterschiedliche soziale Herkunft der beiden sich in ihr Gegenteil verkehrt:
„Was that really Bel? (…) My God. She looks the way I was meant to look“- nämlich graugesichtig und gealtert. Jade hingegen, die aus der bitterarmen Unterschicht stammt, sieht gepflegt und fast wohlhabend aus – auch wenn sie das mit ihrem arbeitslosen Ehemann nicht ist und ein Alkohol-Problem hat.
Dass die Herkunft das ganze Leben bestimmen soll, dass die Kinder werden müssen wie ihre Eltern es waren: daran glaubt Marwood nicht.
Sie bekamen eine neue Existenz, aber auch die lebenslange Bewährungsauflage, sich nie wieder zu sehen (als ob sie das wollten; oder doch? Wer sonst könnte sie verstehen, „The Most Hated Child in Britain“).

Sympathie für die kleinen Leute, die sich mit Billiglöhnen über Wasser halten und eine Abneigung gegen stereotype Klischees kennzeichnen den Stil. Genau beobachtet / beschrieben. Eine der größten Untugenden, die Selbstgerechtigkeit, ist Marwood wohl genauso verhasst, wie sie es Stephen King und Stewart O´Nan ist:
„In the kitchen, a couple of pans in the sink, an old ready-meal carton on the yellowish Formica. She´s no great housekeeper, Jackie, but she´s not filthy either. And you can´t judge someone by how they keep their house in moments of crisis. Amber´s seen enough interiors, in the bedsit life she led after they tipped her out of Blackdown, to know that Jackie has many rungs to slide down the ladder of self-worth.“
Selbstwertgefühl <=> gesellschaftliches Ansehen.

Zugleich geht es in den Ehen, die die beiden Frauen führen, immer auch um Dominanz. Aber nicht nur in der Ehe:
Amber nimmt ihre Arbeitskollegin Jackie für ein paar Tage bei sich auf, die von Martin Bagshawe gestalkt wird (egal wie gruselig der geschildert wird, mein Tatverdacht richtet sich gegen jemand ganz anders). Dieser tötet eine Gelegenheitsprostituierte aus Frustatration, weil er keine richtige Erektion zustande bekommt.
Gewalt und dominantes Verhalten begleiten Amber und Kirsty von Kindheit an. Dabei ist sie nicht einmal besonders stark ausgeprägt, aber allgegenwärtig.)

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my third read of an Alex Marwood and she is proving to be an author I can count on to produce a good read.

Two eleven-year-old girls meet for the first time and by the end of the day are charged with murder. Twenty five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside town when her investigation leads her to interview funfair cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since that dark day when they were just children. But with new lives and families to protect, will they really be able to keep their wicked secret hidden?

The novel flips from past to present to tell the story of these two females who lost their childhood when their lives came intertwined. Well written building up to a thrilling climax. A well crafted plot that is full of suspense.

[Ewa · Rating 2 out of 5]

zawiodłam się

[Lena Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ★

[Roxanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely pants. Very disappointed. Not very nice characters to be honest. No real story or ending.

[Silvie Klokgieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Op een doodgewone zomerochtend ontmoeten twee elfjarige meisjes elkaar. Aan het eind van de dag worden ze beschuldigd van moord. De pers schrijft pagina’s vol over de zaak, maar uiteindelijk worden Bel en Jade vrijgesproken, op voorwaarde dat ze elkaar nooit meer mogen zien. Ze nemen beide een nieuwe naam aan en beginnen aan een nieuw leven.

Vijfentwintig jaar later wordt journaliste Kirsty Lindsay naar de Engelse kustplaats Whitmouth gestuurd om verslag te doen van een mysterieuze reeks aanvallen op vrouwelijke toeristen.  Ze komt in contact met schoonmaakster Amber Gordon, en herkent haar direct; beiden hebben een ander leven opgebouwd onder andere namen...

Dit verhaal begint met een mysterieuze proloog. Daarna spring je terug in de tijd en lees je over Amber. Ze werkt als schoonmaakster in een pretpark, en al snel wordt er een slachtoffer gevonden...

Ondertussen ga je ook herhaaldelijk terug in de tijd. Deze hoofdstukken zijn cursief geschreven, hier lees je over een schokkende gebeurtenis die plaatsvond en waarbij Bel en Jade betrokken waren. In eerste instantie is het onduidelijk wat er precies is gebeurd, maar dat wordt duidelijker naarmate het verhaal vordert.

In het heden lees je ook over journaliste Kirsty, die schoonmaakster Amber tegenkomt. Het blijkt dat ze eenzelfde verleden delen.

Ik vond het begin van dit verhaal erg goed, omdat er al snel een dodelijk slachtoffer wordt gevonden. Ik vond de sprongen naar het verleden ook interessant, maar... daarna kabbelde het verhaal maar voort en miste ik eigenlijk veel spanning.

Omdat het verhaal goed begon, waren mijn verwachtingen hooggespannen en was ik erg enthousiast. Helaas zakte het verhaal flink in en vond ik sommige stukken nogal langdradig.

"Zij heeft het gedaan" was dus niet helemaal mijn ding. Dat betekent niet dat het een slecht verhaal is, maar helaas maakte het mijn verwachtingen niet helemaal waar. Het bevat een aantal interessante momenten, maar toen ik het boek dichtsloeg voelde ik toch een kleine teleurstelling...

Beoordeling: 2,5/3,0 ⭐️

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damaged Goods

The thought of his hurt, of the loss to the children, if they ever found out that they had been loving someone who didn't exist, leaves her gasping for breath. He thinks she's a good person damaged by life. She knows, deep down, that she is—must be—rotten to the core, and that the one thing she must do is protect them all from the ugly truth.

This is Kirsty Lindsay, a reporter with courage and a conscience. She is middle-class, well-educated, the mother of two, married to a banker—and a convicted child murderer. I mean that in both senses. As we learn from the prologue of this terrific debut thriller, Kirsty (as we know her now) was one of two eleven-year-old children convicted of murdering a girl of only four, in a case that shook all of Britain in 1986. Marwood, who is apparently a reporter herself, takes little vignettes from the day of the crime and intersperses them into her main story, set in a seedy English seaside resort 25 years later, when circumstances conspire to bring the two former culprits together again.

I struggled with including even this much information, because Marwood is masterly in how she lays it out. But the back cover of the book will tell you this and more, and I cannot convey any sense of the moral complexities that make the novel so special without going into the double lives of the two main characters. It is essentially a study of what makes a human being what she is: nature or nurture, if you like. As we learn more of the day that made the two children do what they did, we reach our own conclusions about their characters and culpability. This in turn illuminates their behavior now, as they are drawn into the rising tensions of a town rocked by a series of rape-murders at the hands of a killer known only as the Seaside Strangler. What part of who they are now is the work of their own actions since being released on parole, how much results from the punishment or rehabilitation they received while in prison, how much derives from their families and upbringing (for they come from quite different backgrounds), and how much is simply some innate quirks of their makeup? As the story heads into a nail-biting climax at the end of a deserted pier in a rainstorm at night, these abstract questions will be put to a very practical test—literally a matter of life and death—that surprised me by making me recalibrate my moral compass yet again. And even after that, Marwood springs a couple more surprises that deepen our understanding further.

I have not yet mentioned the second of the two girls. This is Amber Gordon, the night cleaning supervisor at Funnland, the tatty amusement park that is the central attraction of the town. She is shown as a considerate boss, always on the lookout for bits of unclaimed property with which to reward members of her staff, several of whom we also get to know as individuals. Long before we learn of her former identity, we have come to know and like her. That deep sympathy may be shaken by later events, but it is never entirely erased. Partly this is because Amber is so clearly a better person than many of the people portrayed around her. It soon becomes clear, for instance, that there is more than one murderer, and there is plenty of other wrongdoing and general loutish behavior to go around. Marwood's portrayal of Kirsty's marriage to an honorable man who happens to have lost his job is equally nuanced. Though there may be important psychological themes at play, what makes Marwood's novel work so superbly is that her characters and their feelings are so darned real.

[I should warn American readers, however, that this is a very British book. It is not just the language; the seaside setting and the behavior found there is much more typical of Britain than the US. There are also numerous references to famous figures that even I as an ex-pat have never heard of. And the conduct of the tabloid press is totally different to what we would find in America, escalating the action in a way that might seem melodramatic or contrived to those whose knowledge stops at the Times or Guardian.]

[Mirai · Rating 3 out of 5]

"หยุดหลอกตัวเองซะทีเถอะ เธอจะเป็นเด็กคนนั้นไปตลอดชีวิตนั่นแหละ ตัวตนของเด็กปีศาจที่ฆ่าเด็กตัวเล็กๆ คนหนึ่งยังฝังลึกอยู่ในตัวเธอ ยอมรับซะ" (หน้า 357)

ตอนอายุ 11 ขวบ "เจด" ได้รู้จักกับเพื่อนใหม่สองคนโดยบังเอิญ คือ "เบล" กับเด็กอีกคนนึง เด็กทั้งสามคนเที่ยวเล่นไปตามทางจนเข้าสู่ทุ่งรกร้าง แต่โชคไม่ดีที่เด็กคนนั้นหมดลมหายใจที่ทุ่งร้างนั่น เจดกับเบลตกเป็นจำเลยสังคม ถูกตราหน้าว่าเป็นฆาตกรเด็ก ทั้งคู่ถูกจับส่งสถานพินิจ และให้สัญญาแก่กันว่าจะไม่กลับมาเจอหน้ากันอีก! เมื่อเวลาผ่านไป ทั้งคู่ต่างก็เปลี่ยนชื่อและใช้ชีวิตเหมือนคนปกติทั่วไปโดยเก็บงำอดีตวัยเด็กเอาไว้ไม่ให้ใครรู้ แต่เหมือนโชคชะตาเล่นตลก เพราะคดีฆาตกรรมต่อเนื่อง ทำให้เจดและเบลกลับมาเจอกันอีกครั้งโดยไม่รู้เลยว่ามีฆาตกรร้ายอีกคนที่แฝงตัวอยู่ใกล้ๆ พวกเธอ!

เป็นนิยายเล่มแรกของสำนักพิมพ์น้ำพุที่เราหยิบมาอ่านค่ะ ไม่รู้อะไรดลใจให้เราซื้อเล่มนี้และหยิบมันขึ้นมาอ่านจากกองดองเหมือนกัน 5555

ตอนแรกนึกว่า เป็นแนวจิตวิทยา เล่นกับความรู้สึกคนอ่านให้สับสนในความรู้สึกนึกคิดของตัวละคร แต่เปล่าเลยค่ะ เป็นแนวระทึกขวัญไล่ล่าคนร้าย เนื้อเรื่องเน้นหนักไปทางดราม่ามากกว่าสืบสวน มุ่งเน้นในส่วนปมปัญหาในใจของสองตัวละครหลัก อย่างเจดและเบล มากกว่าการตามหาว่าในหมู่พวกเรา ใครคือคนร้าย

เนื้อเรื่องเล่าค่อนข้างตรงไปตรงมา ไม่ได้อ่านนิยายแปลตะวันตกที่อ่านง่ายแบบนี้มานานแล้ว ถึงเล่มจะหนาแต่อ่านเร็วมาก ถึงแนวเรื่องจะไม่ใช่อย่างที่คิด แต่ก็มีแรงดึงดูดให้อ่านต่อเรื่อยๆ จนจบอยู่ดี 555

ผู้เขียนจะกั๊กเรื่องราวในอดีตของเจดและเบลไม่ให้ผู้อ่านรับรู้ทีเดียวตั้งแต่ตอนต้นเรื่อง พวกเราจะต้องค่อยๆ อ่าน แล้วทยอยเก็บเหตุการณ์ในอดีตที่ถูกหั่นเป็นช่วงๆ แบบไม่เรียงลำดับเหตุการณ์มาปะติดปะต่อเองแบบจิ๊กซอว์ โดยผู้เขียนจะเล่าเรื่องพวกนั้นแทรกตามจุดต่างๆ ในเนื้อเรื่องหลัก ทำให้เราใคร่รู้อยากยิ่งว่า สรุปแล้ว เหตุการณ์วันนั้นเกิดอะไรขึ้นกันแน่ ที่ทั้งสองคนกลายเป็น "ฆาตกรเด็ก" นั้น เรื่องราวมันจริงเท็จแค่ไหน ซึ่งแน่นอน เรื่องในอดีตพวกนั้น ไม่มีทางหลุดออกมาจากปากสองตัวละครหลักในวัยปัจจุบันเลยซักนิด ราวกับเด็กสองคนที่อยู่ที่ทุ่งร้างนั่นไม่ใช่พวกเธอ

ส่วนเหตุการณ์ในวัยปัจจุบันที่ทำให้ทั้งสองคนเจอกันอีกครั้ง ก็คือ "คดีฆาตกรรมต่อเนื่อง" ทำให้เจดที่เป็นนักข่าว ต้องเดินทางมาทำข่าว ณ เมืองที่เกิดเหตุ ทำให้เธอได้พบกับเบล ในฐานะผู้พบศพคนแรก อีกครั้งหลังจากที่ไม่ได้เจอกันมานานถึงยี่สิบห้าปี แต่ตัวคดีดูไม่ค่อยมีอะไรเท่าไหร่ เหมือนเป็นแค่เหตุการณ์ที่ผู้เขียนสร้างขึ้นมาเพื่อเหวี่ยงเจดกับเบลมาพบกันอีกครั้งเท่านั้น คนร้ายในคดีนี้น่ะเหรอ.. เราว่าเดาไม่ยากหรอก มันค่อนข้างชัดอยู่แล้ว ในพฤติกรรม ในคำพูด ในการแสดงออกหลายๆ อย่างของตัวละครในเรื่อง แต่เข้าใจแหละว่าผู้เขียนไม่ได้ตั้งใจให้เราโฟกัสที่ตัวคดีหรือคนร้าย แต่ต้องการให้เราโฟกัสที่ความรู้สึกของตัวละครหลักสองตัว ที่เก็บความลับในอดีตมานาน แต่กลับถูก "ความตาย" ที่ใครก็ไม่รู้เป็นคนก่อขึ้นมา กดดันพวกเธอสองคนต้องทุรนทุรายและหวาดระแวงว่าความลับพวกเธอจะแตก และจะสูญเสียทุกอย่างไปมากกว่า

แต่ถึงอย่างนั้น ประเด็นแฝงที่เด่นชัดในเรื่องนี้ก็คือ "คนเราจะเปลี่ยนไปจากอดีตได้หรือไม่" การที่เจดและเบลกลายเป็น "ฆาตกรเด็ก" ในตอนนั้น เวลาผ่านไป จะทำให้พวกเธอโตขึ้นมาเป็น "คนชั่วร้าย" จริงรึเปล่า? และที่สำคัญคือ ความชั่วร้ายของพวกเธอ เกิดจากครอบครัว สภาพสังคม หรือเป็นเพราะจิตใจส่วนลึกของพวกเธอกันแน่? พวกเธอเป็นคนชั่วร้ายตั้งแต่แรก หรือเป็นเพราะใครยัดเยียดความชั่วร้ายให้พวกเธอกันแน่? แต่ก็ปฏิเสธไม่ได้ว่า จุดเริ่มต้นแห่งความบิดเบี้ยวทุกอย่างในปัจจุบัน เกิดขึ้นจากการที่ทั้งสองถูกตราหน้าว่าเป็น "ฆาตกรเด็ก" นั่นแหละ

อ่าาา สำหรับเรา พูดยากมากว่ารู้สึกยังไงกับหนังสือเล่มนี้ 5555 คือ มันสนุกมั้ย ก็สนุก มีเรื่องให้ลุ้น ให้คอยติดตามอยู่ เป็นแนวระทึกขวัญแต่ไม่ค่อยจิตวิทยา เน้นดราม่า ไม่เน้นสืบสวน อยู่แต่กับความลับในอดีตที่ตามหลอกหลอน แต่ใช้ชีวิตในปัจจุบันไม่ค่อยดีเท่าไหร่.. ถ้ามองในภาพรวม เราว่าก็โอเคอยู่นะ แม้ผู้เขียนจะไม่ได้ไขความชัดเจนในประเด็นต่างๆ ที่วางทิ้งไว้ระหว่างทางในเนื้อเรื่องเลยก็ตาม