One Woman Crime Wave

by Bee Rowlatt

What is your babysitter doing when you’re not there?

Fifteen-year-old Ashleigh is clever and charming, all too ready to rush to the rescue of parents in need of relief, and she soon becomes the neighbourhood’s favourite babysitter. But she has an appetite for secrets.

Fast-paced, witty and scalpel-sharp, One Woman Crime Wave examines the limits of what money can buy, and how easily the fragile web of middle-class privilege can be torn. In the end, is it really Ashleigh who’s the problem, or is it the fractious and divided community she exposes?

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2024

Reviews

[Sandy Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an easy read, contemporary modern literature. The story is of Ashleigh, the 15 year old babysitter who looks after children from well-off families. All is not as she seems as she searches for secrets and steals and collects them. Tara is one of the school gate mafia who struggles to fit in. Book and mum's groups are described, and a dinner party from Hell is wonderfully written. It's an interesting read, but my goodness, it just felt like the author got carried away in the last part of the book and didn't know how to end things. The way in which Ashleigh looks for clues as to what is going on in Tara's house is stalkerly chilling. I thought the prologue was unnecessary, and I much preferred the slow unwrapping of Ashleighs deviousness. This would have a much higher rating if not for the ending as it showed so much promise in the beginning, with the latter half running away with itself. A prime example of a lack of self-control and less is more. Excellent premis, but unfortunately, the disappointing ending was so Meh....

[Dave Appleby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will probably appeal to reading groups who are looking for a light, easy read with a contemporary feel.

Ashleigh is the babysitter that the posh mums recommend to one another, never realising that, when they are out for the evening, she is searching through their possessions, ferreting out their secrets and taking souvenirs.

It's a great premise for a book and it opposes poor Ashleigh, the intelligent kid from the single-parent home, against rich Tara, the wife who has it all and yet has nothing, who hates the empty chatter at dinner parties and yet turns vicious when standards of service aren't exactly as she expects them to be. These are two great characters and the tension really builds up in the first half if the book.

But then it all falls apart. After the inevitable discovery, the tight drama degenerates into a thriller. Suddenly we have a drug dealer and an attempted child abduction, and another child under threat, and somehow in all this noise the original plot is lost in the muddle and the resolution is, at best, partial. Either the author didn't know how to resolve the plot, or she didn't trust herself to keep the reader's attention through the resolution, or she felt the need to spin the story out into a longer one.

There seems to be a common belief with some novels and a lot of TV 'drama' series that excitement equals action when the opposite is often the case.

The structure of the book was further undermined, in my opinion, by the prologue. A lot of modern novels like to start with a few pages taken from the middle of the action. Of course these pages are intended to hook and to tantalise but they mustn't give too much away. I suppose they are there because the main story takes a little time to get going. In fact this book would have been a lot better if the prologue had been scrapped (and not just because it was taken from the poor second half of the story). If you want to start 'in media res', start with Ashleigh in Tara's house, going through her possessions. That was chilling. And now that you have my attention, backtrack a little and explain what's going on.

Nevertheless, Ashleigh was a wonderful character and gave a real insight into the mind of someone who is hugely intelligent, badly damaged by life, and whose behaviour is at best obsessive stalking and at worst borderline psychopathic. And Tara was another villain who was also a victim, someone deserving of sympathy until you realised just how much emotional vandalism she could cause. Of the other characters, Ludi was a little one dimensional and Giles was a total stereotype. Such a caricature may appeal to the target audience but it felt lazy.

The pacing is nearly perfect with the major turning point almost exactly at the 50% mark.

There is also a wonderful satire of the dinner party from Hell which acts, together with the reading group and the school gate mums, as a powerful indictment of the exclusive clique of privilege to which Tara - poor Tara - belongs.

[Tim Ewins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to read this book because I liked the bi-line. It turned out to be my favourite book of the year so far! The characters are so beautifully drawn. There are lots of twists so it keeps you guessing but often the twists come from characterisation which felt original and different. I’ve already recommended it to my mum, but she never writes anything on Goodreads. I’m certain she’ll love it though, so consider this 2 reviews in one 👍

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was short and interesting, and well-written on a sentence level. I prefer stories from the working-class point of view and OWCW was mostly that. But I wonder if it might have felt more satisfying on a whole-story level if it had focused on only one or two POVs, and developed those characters more fully? I was most engaged with Ashleigh's story - as the cover reminds us, who isn't fascinated (and terrified) by what the babysitter might be doing while we're not there? She was a very compelling character. But even Ashleigh's emotional plot points weren't fully explored or explained, and after I finished I felt like I'd just been treated to a pretty predictable crime show instead of the deep psychological study of a troubled teenager that I'd hoped for. All the characters' issues got strewn across the pages rather quickly, then tidied right back up again. I'd read Bee Rowlatt's next novel, with a vote for not quite such a breathless pace (in favour of the opportunity to breathe into the story a little more deeply).

[Hayley Dunning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun but full of meaning.

[J Fearnley · Rating 5 out of 5]

*This is a review for ONE WOMAN CRIME WAVE by Bee Rowlatt*

Tara is married to Giles they have a seven year old daughter Betsy. Tara and Giles are going to a dinner party. Enter Ashleigh, the new babysitter. Samina, their nanny, wasn’t available. Tara had heard about Ashleigh from the other mothers. Seems she is the best around. Ashleigh is the perfect babysitter.

Tara is bored with her life once she was in TV, in development, but now she’s just been put to one side, just a housewife and mother, unseen and unheard. She’s trying to regain her life, to return to her TV career, she volunteered with the anti-FGM campaign No Cuts writing a piece on her blog and is ‘now a writer’ developing the blog into a screenplay. No one seems to care.

It’s clear from the start that Tara and Giles are and mix with people who are racist, the men sexist and elitist. They are not very nice people.

Ashleigh has an agenda when she’s babysitting . She’s a snooper, giving it just enough time to ensure the parents are not returning, she is fascinated with gathering information about the families that she babysits for. None of them have any idea what Ashleigh is up to when they are out. Ashleigh has perfected the role of babysitting ‘Angel’ and snooping.

Ashleigh babysits for a small group of mums, Tara who we’ve met, Sophie, Holly and so on we meet them all if only for the briefest moment. She once lived in Tara’s house when it was flats but now lives with her father and sister in the Tanghall blocks.

Samira is studying law. She’s her father’s hope for the future. She and her brother, who works shifts, live together. Samira works hard at her studies and brings in some income from her job as a nanny. So it comes as a shock when Tara fires her for stealing! She didn’t do it. But Tara knows it could only be Samira.

I was almost sympathetic towards Tara it must be hard to get back into work and she is trying, wasn’t she? But Tara’s not what she wants you to think she is! Tara has a nasty streak. She’s not content with just letting Samira go she lodges a formal complaint to the police. Samira might have shrugged it off but involving the police puts her hopes of a career in law at jeopardy. It’s a step too far and Samira has to do something about it.

Holly tries to join in with the mums at the school gate but they aren’t interested. It’s when Holly asks Ashleigh to babysit that things start to unravel.

This is a book that puts the white British (upper?)middle class under some scrutiny in a sharply observed, dark, witty story that shows it up for the scared, unpleasant, self pitying people it can be. It highlights the hypocrisy and ignorance that abound when people feel threatened by those who come from different backgrounds, circumstances, status, religions, ethnicities and cultures.

It’s a thoughtful, interesting and moving read that takes an everyday activity and gives a dark twist to it. As you read it becomes more and more important to find out what is happening, why it is happening and how it can be resolved.

I liked Ashleigh even though she obviously had problems that no one was willing or able to do anything about or didn’t even notice until Holly.

Samira was another character I liked and she formulates a plan to get her reputation restored with just a little help.

But does Samira get her good name back? Will Tara get her old life back? Was her life really as she thought it was? Will she get her comeuppance? Why does Ashleigh snoop around? What did Holly see that the other mothers ignored? What did Holly and Ashleigh’s father uncover?

As I read and the story unfolded I was fascinated to find out what happened.

With wonderful, if not all loveable, characters this is a story that will resonate with many for a lot of reasons and the ending was, for me, satisfying and yet still left me wanting to know more. Yes, I wanted everything tied up neatly with a little bow but life well it doesn’t usually work that way.

4.5-5*

Thanks
Many thanks to Will of Renard Books who kindly sent me a copy of One Woman Crime Wave by Bee Rowlatt to read and share my thoughts on. All thoughts are my own.

[Miranda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was easy to read and reasonably fast-paced. The upper middle-class mums and dads of the home counties are skewered and satirised, whilst their working-class babysitter steals from their homes.

But tbh a lot of it was just... Kind of uncomfortable? The more I think about it, the more I've got a really bad lingering feeling about this one.

For a book that seems to have the goal of centering and uplifting a working-class and/or non-white audience, this felt incredibly patronising. I can't quite put my finger on why - but it might be to do with the very vague and stereotypical characterisation of the non-white and working-class characters. Whereas Tara, the main snobby southern mum, has a lot of snarky internal monologues so you really get a feel for her general vibe, Samina - Tara’s Iraqi babysitter - is basically just a personalityless plot-device who is wrongfully accused of stealing by Tara. It’s like her entire character only exists to prove that Tara is a racist bully. Literally. Aside from the whole accused-of-stealing thing, Samina studies super hard to go to university, and that's it. Which is just… a bit reductive? Would it have hurt to give her a hobby? An outside interest? Idk.

On a similar note, I think it's leaning into such a weird stereotype to make the northern woman the only good-hearted, working-class mother of the entire bunch, scraping every penny together to buy her child a Christmas toy. It came off a bit bizarre in my opinion, as I’m pretty sure her character is meant to be taken seriously. She was characterised like some jolly-and-hardworking-but-impoverished Cratchit, naively reaching out to the snobby southern mums only to be shunned. It’s like the writer doesn’t realise that complex and fractured class dynamics exist in the north of England too.

[Thebooktrail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discover the locations in the novel here

For a short novel, this packs a punch!

A baby sitter who is a bit light fingered. Well, that is just the start of this story. Dig deeper and you have a few insights into life in a British community and the class divide. The way it's written was fresh and funny as I felt I was talking to the narrator rather than reading her words. This is raw and real.

Why she steals and how she sees those she babysits for, what the parents of the children see....well there is a lot to digest.

But what a story and characters who pop!

[Lijia Zhang]

From the moment I opened “One Woman Crime Wave”, I was captivated. The novel introduces us to Ashleigh, a 15-year-old girl whose charm makes her a popular babysitter in her neighborhood—though she harbors a secret compulsion to steal. But this remarkable debut is much more than just the tale of a young thief. As an observer from the outside, I found myself drawn into the sharp portrayal of class divides and simmering tensions within the community, a reflection of the social fabric of contemporary Britain. Bee’s writing mirrors her conversational style—witty, quick-paced, and utterly engaging. A truly impressive feat!

[Lucy Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really refreshing book which courageously explores the microcosms of society and explodes it into a prism of juicy twists and turns, eventually leading to a place called home.

[Dawn Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and perfect discussion fodder for book groups.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This didn't quite go in the direction I expected - not really a crime novel, more of a character study.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy and enjoyable read - an interesting story with great characters. I love Ashleigh.