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DI Erica Martin #1
Bitter Fruits
Detective Inspector Erica Martin's first case in the university city of Durham is Emily Brabents, a first-year student, who is found dead in the river.
DI Martin visits Joyce College, a cradle for the country's future elite, and finds a close-knit community full of secrets, jealousy and obsession.
Her search reveals a vicious online trolling culture but could Emily, from the privileged and popular crowd, have been a victim? Should the sudden confession to the murder by the student president be believed?
And just who is the mysterious Daniel Shepherd whose name keeps appearing in the investigation...?
DI Martin visits Joyce College, a cradle for the country's future elite, and finds a close-knit community full of secrets, jealousy and obsession.
Her search reveals a vicious online trolling culture but could Emily, from the privileged and popular crowd, have been a victim? Should the sudden confession to the murder by the student president be believed?
And just who is the mysterious Daniel Shepherd whose name keeps appearing in the investigation...?
432 pages, Paperback
First published July 2, 2015
52 people are currently reading
929 people want to read
About the author
Alice Clark-Platts
11 books176 followersI am a former human rights lawyer who used to work for the UK Government. As a litigator, I worked on cases involving Winnie Mandela and the rapper Snoop Dogg. I loved my job but then we re-located to the tropics and now I live in wonderful Singapore.
I also write short stories which have been published in in various anthologies. And when I’m not writing, I’m running The Singapore Writers’ Group which I founded in 2012. This is a fantastic group of both professional and amateur writers who meet monthly and attend workshops and critique sessions
Found on: http://www.aliceclarkplatts.com/
I also write short stories which have been published in in various anthologies. And when I’m not writing, I’m running The Singapore Writers’ Group which I founded in 2012. This is a fantastic group of both professional and amateur writers who meet monthly and attend workshops and critique sessions
Found on: http://www.aliceclarkplatts.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
June 19, 2015
Bitter Fruits was a really beautifully written novel, haunting, atmospheric, very lyrical in places and a heady mix of police procedural and psychological thriller - one woven into the other in an intelligent and really engaging style that makes this a real page turner.
Emily is found dead, and Martin, newly arrived to the area is put on the case. As she investigates, dark secrets begin to emerge about the college Emily attended in Durham, indeed dark secrets are surfacing all round...
It is actually quite difficult to describe how well this works, how perfectly pitched it is both in tone and flow - Martin's investigation, diary entries from a boy called Daniel who charts his ongoing friendship with Emily - both leading one into the other and back again to paint a full picture. There are some wonderfully deep characters here as well - Emily is an enigma, Daniel has such a distinct and intriguing narrative voice, then you have Martin determined to put it all together and get justice for the victim.
Shades of "The Secret History" here in a good way- dare I say though in some ways much better because the author resists the urge to ramble on but still has an absolutely spot on sense when it comes to using language to invoke emotional response. Switching between beautiful and practical in the feel of it, this novel worked for me on every level.
Overall then really really good. I'm a fan. A huge fan and this comes highly recommended from me.
Happy Reading Folks!
Emily is found dead, and Martin, newly arrived to the area is put on the case. As she investigates, dark secrets begin to emerge about the college Emily attended in Durham, indeed dark secrets are surfacing all round...
It is actually quite difficult to describe how well this works, how perfectly pitched it is both in tone and flow - Martin's investigation, diary entries from a boy called Daniel who charts his ongoing friendship with Emily - both leading one into the other and back again to paint a full picture. There are some wonderfully deep characters here as well - Emily is an enigma, Daniel has such a distinct and intriguing narrative voice, then you have Martin determined to put it all together and get justice for the victim.
Shades of "The Secret History" here in a good way- dare I say though in some ways much better because the author resists the urge to ramble on but still has an absolutely spot on sense when it comes to using language to invoke emotional response. Switching between beautiful and practical in the feel of it, this novel worked for me on every level.
Overall then really really good. I'm a fan. A huge fan and this comes highly recommended from me.
Happy Reading Folks!
September 23, 2017
Bitter Fruits is an impressive debut novel which is both police procedural and part psychological thriller and proves gripping, eerily atmospheric and sheds light on the inescapable pressures and strains that come with being thrown into an all consuming environment; specifically one of the bastions of higher education and privilege that can be alien territory to those unprepared for the experience. This is a story which explores the death of a student from both the aspect of establishing guilt, right through to the underpinnings and psychology of those closely linked to the victim in the run up to her demise. Newly transplanted from Newcastle CID to the hallowed university town of Durham, just three-weeks into her new job sees DI Erica Martin given a baptism of fire when Regatta weekend results in the discovery of Joyce College fresher, Emily Brabents, dead body in the weir. With eyes glazed, clad in only a t-shirt, evidence of self harming and nasty marks around her neck, DI Martin suspects murder. But with an off the bat confession from a fellow student, elected president Simon Rush, an overly involved College President, Phillip Mason, and a college culture of trolling, cyber-bullying and online sexual harassment rife, DI Martin and her sidekick, DS Jones, have their work cut out. With Rush promptly handed over for a psychiatric evaluation DI Martin attempts to gain a handle on Emily’s complex personality and finds herself faced with a naive and insecure young woman under the misconception that allowing gratuitous and pornographic photos and videos of herself to be circulated somehow equated to empowering feminist behaviour.
The majority of the storyline is narrated in the third person and focuses on DI Martin’s endeavours, however this is complemented with the interspersed journal entries of sensitive English student and outsider, Daniel Shepherd, with his deeply ironic and scathing view of the culture within the university, and some snippy commentary by online journalist, Sean Egan of The Durham Chronicle. Distinctions between each of these elements of the narrative are well-marked and this make-up draws the reader into a fascinating expose of the salacious details of the permissive student culture, some of which is admittedly a little far-fetched (Emily’s willingness for photos to be openly shared, not to mention that the college authorities knowingly permitting such behaviour). With DI Martin and DS Jones attempting to get to grips with Emily’s social circle and pinning down her immature best friend, Annabel, and odious boyfriend, Nick, as they wait to resume questioning Simon Rush, suspicion starts to fall on Emily’s background and quick-tempered father, Michael Brabents. However, as the mysterious Daniel Shepherd refuses to surface, DI Martin attempts to clarify his part in Emily’s story through his email correspondence with compromised university counsellor, Stephanie Suleiman. Although the pace of the investigation does flounder a little as the second half opens and the convoluted denouement risks confusion, the superior psychological aspects of Bitter Fruits makes this a solid four star read.
DI Erica Martin is more of a thinker as opposed to a grafter and remains an enigmatic presence as she conducts operations under the eyes of the university and a local media who seems to be curiously well-informed. As pressure comes from her superiors and with tourism and university morale reliant on and speedy resolution, DI Martin’s steadfast refusal to be rushed is to her credit. Having moved to the market town of Chester-le-Street, Martin’s marriage is increasingly showing strains with her older husband, Jim, slow to settle in and Bitter Fruits hints at a latent attraction between her and boss, DCI Sam Butterworth although this is never explored. However, for the most part, Clark-Platts lets an gritty plot and untangling the mess drive the novel and thankfully does not seem to feel the need to encumber her protagonist with either maverick tendencies or myriad problems. It is this sound emphasis on getting to grips with who Emily was as opposed to the facade she presented before going on to explore just what has made her a victim that is the focus of the novel and introduces a distinctive voice to the world of crime fiction.
I have a predisposition to novels with an academic setting and having had a similar university experience to Durham and a sister who attended, I felt it really captured the often stifling atmosphere and the desire to fit in and be accepted amongst ones peers. Some of the pretentiousness surrounding revered Joyce College was, I fear, a little over-embellished more from the side of the college authorities who seemed to willingly buy into the whole culture of bullying which is a ludicrously unlikely scenario. Whilst I doubt that such a culture would ever be allowed to rear its head in such a cloistered college setting, this does not stop Bitter Fruits proving compelling and memorably different from the ranks of mainstream crime fiction. Clark-Platts has crafted a literary debut crime novel which is intelligently written and makes some insightful and damning points on an increasingly digital age where the younger generations can be drawn into a dog-eat-dog world of online naming and shaming and go to extraordinary lengths to be accepted by their peers. This is a series that I intend to continue with and I have already purchased Alice Clark-Platts follow-up, The Taken, featuring a return for DI Erica Martin.
The majority of the storyline is narrated in the third person and focuses on DI Martin’s endeavours, however this is complemented with the interspersed journal entries of sensitive English student and outsider, Daniel Shepherd, with his deeply ironic and scathing view of the culture within the university, and some snippy commentary by online journalist, Sean Egan of The Durham Chronicle. Distinctions between each of these elements of the narrative are well-marked and this make-up draws the reader into a fascinating expose of the salacious details of the permissive student culture, some of which is admittedly a little far-fetched (Emily’s willingness for photos to be openly shared, not to mention that the college authorities knowingly permitting such behaviour). With DI Martin and DS Jones attempting to get to grips with Emily’s social circle and pinning down her immature best friend, Annabel, and odious boyfriend, Nick, as they wait to resume questioning Simon Rush, suspicion starts to fall on Emily’s background and quick-tempered father, Michael Brabents. However, as the mysterious Daniel Shepherd refuses to surface, DI Martin attempts to clarify his part in Emily’s story through his email correspondence with compromised university counsellor, Stephanie Suleiman. Although the pace of the investigation does flounder a little as the second half opens and the convoluted denouement risks confusion, the superior psychological aspects of Bitter Fruits makes this a solid four star read.
DI Erica Martin is more of a thinker as opposed to a grafter and remains an enigmatic presence as she conducts operations under the eyes of the university and a local media who seems to be curiously well-informed. As pressure comes from her superiors and with tourism and university morale reliant on and speedy resolution, DI Martin’s steadfast refusal to be rushed is to her credit. Having moved to the market town of Chester-le-Street, Martin’s marriage is increasingly showing strains with her older husband, Jim, slow to settle in and Bitter Fruits hints at a latent attraction between her and boss, DCI Sam Butterworth although this is never explored. However, for the most part, Clark-Platts lets an gritty plot and untangling the mess drive the novel and thankfully does not seem to feel the need to encumber her protagonist with either maverick tendencies or myriad problems. It is this sound emphasis on getting to grips with who Emily was as opposed to the facade she presented before going on to explore just what has made her a victim that is the focus of the novel and introduces a distinctive voice to the world of crime fiction.
I have a predisposition to novels with an academic setting and having had a similar university experience to Durham and a sister who attended, I felt it really captured the often stifling atmosphere and the desire to fit in and be accepted amongst ones peers. Some of the pretentiousness surrounding revered Joyce College was, I fear, a little over-embellished more from the side of the college authorities who seemed to willingly buy into the whole culture of bullying which is a ludicrously unlikely scenario. Whilst I doubt that such a culture would ever be allowed to rear its head in such a cloistered college setting, this does not stop Bitter Fruits proving compelling and memorably different from the ranks of mainstream crime fiction. Clark-Platts has crafted a literary debut crime novel which is intelligently written and makes some insightful and damning points on an increasingly digital age where the younger generations can be drawn into a dog-eat-dog world of online naming and shaming and go to extraordinary lengths to be accepted by their peers. This is a series that I intend to continue with and I have already purchased Alice Clark-Platts follow-up, The Taken, featuring a return for DI Erica Martin.
September 1, 2016
I know this book has been out a while now and I am trying to go backwards in my line of read to reviews.
This is a great debut novel, I notice a lot of debut novels that are coming out recently have been of a high standard and have really captured my attention, this one being of the same mind. Its haunting.
Emily the girl who was murdered is a very complicated girl, I found her character very interesting.
The Investigation into her death and the minds of those surrounding it were awesome.
A little more about the detective would be have been good, a bit surrounding him.
But this just a minor thing for me, doesn't spoil the book, just something I would prefer personally.
My thanks to Penguin UK - Michael Joseph via Net Galley for my copy
June 28, 2015
*Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review*
This is a really awkward review to write and one that I've had to think carefully about, mainly because the ARC I received was in dire need of editing for style and language (and I don't mean proofreading - there weren't typos, it was just badly written). So how should I review it? Should I just review the copy I was given, or should I try and see through the bad writing and assume that that will be ironed out in the published copy? The edits required are (I think) substantial, and it would essentially need re-drafting. To make writing a review even more difficult, there is a bold-lettered statement at the beginning of all ARCs stating that I can't quote the book because it's subject to change (which is absolutely fair enough). I'll struggle to accurately illustrate why I didn't like this book without using direct quotes, but here goes...
The premise of this book was great. The corpse of Emily Brabents, a first-year student at Durham University, is found floating in a weir on a summer morning in Durham. It soon becomes apparent that the death wasn't accidental and that she was brutally strangled. Enter DI Erica Martin, who is tasked with finding the killer. As she digs deeper into the life of the university and its students, Erica uncovers a subculture of slut-shaming, cyberbullying and abuse. All fascinating and important topics, and an interesting hook for a crime thriller. Unfortunately, this book was let down by really amateurish writing.
I'm not generally a pedantic reader. I can handle a few badly structured sentences or misjudged metaphors, as long as I'm invested enough in the plot and characters to keep reading (case in point: I LOVED the two Robert Galbraith books and there were more than a few examples of iffy writing in those). But with this book, I found the writing so problematic all the way through that I just couldn't get past it to the plot. It's worth mentioning that the book was structured with chapters set in the present describing Erica's progress on the investigation alternating with chapters set in the past and told from the perspective of one of Emily's friends, and the latter are significantly better written that the former. The problems I had with the book were manifold but included:
- Completely incorrect words being used, seemingly in an attempt to sound artistic/intelligent. For example, we have a young man looking ahead to his tedious life and dreading 'infinitesimal' cups of tea. What's wrong with tiny, microscopic cups of tea??? Why would you use infinitesimal rather than infinite anyway? Because it's longer? As stated before, I don't know whether this will be sorted out before the final copy is published in two weeks, but one would sincerely hope so.
- Long words that *kind of* make sense being used for no reason. Like the track that 'circumnavigated' the sports field. I don't think that this is strictly the right use of circumnavigate but let's offer some creative license. Even then, it's just annoying that when long words are being used that don't add anything. 'Around' would do fine. We also have someone who has just been informed of a gruesome murder and who is presumably in a state of shock being described as being in a reverie. Reverie means being lost in pleasant thoughts, not being unable to speak due to shock.
- Absent commas that made me have to re-read a sentence a few times to work out what was being said. As above, hopefully this will be ironed out in the final copy.
- Silly and annoying ways of describing dialogue, e.g. ''Blah blah?' QUESTIONED Martin', or even worse 'QUERIED Martin'. Just use 'asked'. Creative writing instructors tell people to use 'said' or 'asked' for good reason, and you only realise what that reason is until you read something written by someone who either didn't get that memo or ignored it.
- Badly structured sentences that didn't make sense. Just one example - one of the characters is musing about the dangers of a group of physics students who had designed their own rockets. He decides that a bunch of geeks shouldn't be in charge of setting off explosives in a public place that they themselves had designed - sorry, are they physicists or town planners?
- 'Which' EVERYWHERE. Why not give 'that' a go every once in a while?
- Sooooo many redundant words. Sentences that could easily be tightened up.
These are just a few examples. The overall effect was that no matter how much I tried to immerse myself in the plot and characters, I just couldn't.
Another MAJOR issue for me was that this is a book about cyberbullying on sites such as Twitter and Facebook which appears to have been written by a person who has never used either. E.g. after the victim is found dead, DI Martin goes online to look at her Facebook profile. One of the most recent posts on her wall is a picture of herself performing a sex act (or having sex? I'm not entirely sure) and underneath the photo are a range of slut-shaming comments from trolls. Supposedly, the photo had been posted months before she died. Later, in the flashback chapters, the victim is asked why she couldn't just delete the photo. And she says that she can't access it apart from to comment on it because she has been fraped?? My jaw actually dropped at the amateurishness of this:
a) fraping is when someone accesses your account as you and posts something as you to embarass you. It's gone hugely out of fashion nowadays, but I have seen some genuinely funny frapes in my time (e.g. people whose profiles had been changed into shrines to the 1980s band Toto, or someone who logged in and found that they had 100 new friends all with the same surname as them). If she was indeed fraped, then the photos would have been uploaded onto her own account and she could delete them straight away.
b) If someone else had uploaded the photo of her, it wouldn't appear on her wall unless she was tagged in it, in which case she could just de-tag it and report it to Facebook. Facebook, despite their many flaws, are always quick to respond to requests to take explicit photos down. I once had a photo of a friend taken down because it was of him putting his finger through his fly and pretending it was his willy (sophisticated eh?), and I was banned from posting photos for a week.
c) If she had been fraped and then locked out of her account then she would have been able to report this to Facebook, because the account would have been linked to her email address.
d) the comments on the photos were all posted from fake profiles with names like 'Princess87' ?!?! Seriously? Has this author literally never been on Facebook? I'm not even going to get in to how wrong that is. Anyone who's ever been on Facebook will instantly see why that's stupid.
I think it's fine for authors to write on topics that they're not intimately familiar with, but do a bit of research first. It's not like it would be particularly onerous to set up a Facebook profile.
Gosh, this is turning into more of a rant than I thought it would be.
Right, what else? The characters were predominantly one-dimensional, mainly because of the way they spoke. I don't think many of them would have passed the Turing test. The dialogue was very cliched.
I found it aggravating that the main character was constantly referred to as 'Martin', even in the context of her interacting with her mother or her husband (they didn't actually call her Martin, to be fair, but that's how she was referred to). I don't know if this is meant to be some kind of statement about gender, Martin being a male name and all, but it just didn't work for me. It's not the 1950s anymore, while police officers might be referred to by their surname sometimes, it doesn't happen all of the time.
Also, slightly random point but one that I've only just realised - the title has NOTHING to do with the book? I don't know where it even came from. It's a good title though and it's got a nice cover so whatever.
So, the question remaining is 'why two stars and not one?' The answer to that is mainly to do with the fact that this was an ARC. If this was the final version then I would have given it one star. But I feel that I should give the editors the benefit of the doubt and assume that what I read is not what will hit bookshelves in a few weeks' time. But at the same time, if this book was edited into a three- or a four-star book, the changes required would be so substantial that it would be a fundamentally different book to the one I just read.
Also, I did read the entire book. The plot wasn't groundbreaking but, taken in isolation, it was OK. I DNF'd two books within the last six weeks, but Bitter Fruits made it onto my 'Read' shelf, and that has to count for something.
I'll look forward to checking back on the reviews of this book in six months or so to see whether people who read the published copy have similar things to say about the writing style. I'd like to know by how much the ARC I was given differs from the published version.
This is a really awkward review to write and one that I've had to think carefully about, mainly because the ARC I received was in dire need of editing for style and language (and I don't mean proofreading - there weren't typos, it was just badly written). So how should I review it? Should I just review the copy I was given, or should I try and see through the bad writing and assume that that will be ironed out in the published copy? The edits required are (I think) substantial, and it would essentially need re-drafting. To make writing a review even more difficult, there is a bold-lettered statement at the beginning of all ARCs stating that I can't quote the book because it's subject to change (which is absolutely fair enough). I'll struggle to accurately illustrate why I didn't like this book without using direct quotes, but here goes...
The premise of this book was great. The corpse of Emily Brabents, a first-year student at Durham University, is found floating in a weir on a summer morning in Durham. It soon becomes apparent that the death wasn't accidental and that she was brutally strangled. Enter DI Erica Martin, who is tasked with finding the killer. As she digs deeper into the life of the university and its students, Erica uncovers a subculture of slut-shaming, cyberbullying and abuse. All fascinating and important topics, and an interesting hook for a crime thriller. Unfortunately, this book was let down by really amateurish writing.
I'm not generally a pedantic reader. I can handle a few badly structured sentences or misjudged metaphors, as long as I'm invested enough in the plot and characters to keep reading (case in point: I LOVED the two Robert Galbraith books and there were more than a few examples of iffy writing in those). But with this book, I found the writing so problematic all the way through that I just couldn't get past it to the plot. It's worth mentioning that the book was structured with chapters set in the present describing Erica's progress on the investigation alternating with chapters set in the past and told from the perspective of one of Emily's friends, and the latter are significantly better written that the former. The problems I had with the book were manifold but included:
- Completely incorrect words being used, seemingly in an attempt to sound artistic/intelligent. For example, we have a young man looking ahead to his tedious life and dreading 'infinitesimal' cups of tea. What's wrong with tiny, microscopic cups of tea??? Why would you use infinitesimal rather than infinite anyway? Because it's longer? As stated before, I don't know whether this will be sorted out before the final copy is published in two weeks, but one would sincerely hope so.
- Long words that *kind of* make sense being used for no reason. Like the track that 'circumnavigated' the sports field. I don't think that this is strictly the right use of circumnavigate but let's offer some creative license. Even then, it's just annoying that when long words are being used that don't add anything. 'Around' would do fine. We also have someone who has just been informed of a gruesome murder and who is presumably in a state of shock being described as being in a reverie. Reverie means being lost in pleasant thoughts, not being unable to speak due to shock.
- Absent commas that made me have to re-read a sentence a few times to work out what was being said. As above, hopefully this will be ironed out in the final copy.
- Silly and annoying ways of describing dialogue, e.g. ''Blah blah?' QUESTIONED Martin', or even worse 'QUERIED Martin'. Just use 'asked'. Creative writing instructors tell people to use 'said' or 'asked' for good reason, and you only realise what that reason is until you read something written by someone who either didn't get that memo or ignored it.
- Badly structured sentences that didn't make sense. Just one example - one of the characters is musing about the dangers of a group of physics students who had designed their own rockets. He decides that a bunch of geeks shouldn't be in charge of setting off explosives in a public place that they themselves had designed - sorry, are they physicists or town planners?
- 'Which' EVERYWHERE. Why not give 'that' a go every once in a while?
- Sooooo many redundant words. Sentences that could easily be tightened up.
These are just a few examples. The overall effect was that no matter how much I tried to immerse myself in the plot and characters, I just couldn't.
Another MAJOR issue for me was that this is a book about cyberbullying on sites such as Twitter and Facebook which appears to have been written by a person who has never used either. E.g. after the victim is found dead, DI Martin goes online to look at her Facebook profile. One of the most recent posts on her wall is a picture of herself performing a sex act (or having sex? I'm not entirely sure) and underneath the photo are a range of slut-shaming comments from trolls. Supposedly, the photo had been posted months before she died. Later, in the flashback chapters, the victim is asked why she couldn't just delete the photo. And she says that she can't access it apart from to comment on it because she has been fraped?? My jaw actually dropped at the amateurishness of this:
a) fraping is when someone accesses your account as you and posts something as you to embarass you. It's gone hugely out of fashion nowadays, but I have seen some genuinely funny frapes in my time (e.g. people whose profiles had been changed into shrines to the 1980s band Toto, or someone who logged in and found that they had 100 new friends all with the same surname as them). If she was indeed fraped, then the photos would have been uploaded onto her own account and she could delete them straight away.
b) If someone else had uploaded the photo of her, it wouldn't appear on her wall unless she was tagged in it, in which case she could just de-tag it and report it to Facebook. Facebook, despite their many flaws, are always quick to respond to requests to take explicit photos down. I once had a photo of a friend taken down because it was of him putting his finger through his fly and pretending it was his willy (sophisticated eh?), and I was banned from posting photos for a week.
c) If she had been fraped and then locked out of her account then she would have been able to report this to Facebook, because the account would have been linked to her email address.
d) the comments on the photos were all posted from fake profiles with names like 'Princess87' ?!?! Seriously? Has this author literally never been on Facebook? I'm not even going to get in to how wrong that is. Anyone who's ever been on Facebook will instantly see why that's stupid.
I think it's fine for authors to write on topics that they're not intimately familiar with, but do a bit of research first. It's not like it would be particularly onerous to set up a Facebook profile.
Gosh, this is turning into more of a rant than I thought it would be.
Right, what else? The characters were predominantly one-dimensional, mainly because of the way they spoke. I don't think many of them would have passed the Turing test. The dialogue was very cliched.
I found it aggravating that the main character was constantly referred to as 'Martin', even in the context of her interacting with her mother or her husband (they didn't actually call her Martin, to be fair, but that's how she was referred to). I don't know if this is meant to be some kind of statement about gender, Martin being a male name and all, but it just didn't work for me. It's not the 1950s anymore, while police officers might be referred to by their surname sometimes, it doesn't happen all of the time.
Also, slightly random point but one that I've only just realised - the title has NOTHING to do with the book? I don't know where it even came from. It's a good title though and it's got a nice cover so whatever.
So, the question remaining is 'why two stars and not one?' The answer to that is mainly to do with the fact that this was an ARC. If this was the final version then I would have given it one star. But I feel that I should give the editors the benefit of the doubt and assume that what I read is not what will hit bookshelves in a few weeks' time. But at the same time, if this book was edited into a three- or a four-star book, the changes required would be so substantial that it would be a fundamentally different book to the one I just read.
Also, I did read the entire book. The plot wasn't groundbreaking but, taken in isolation, it was OK. I DNF'd two books within the last six weeks, but Bitter Fruits made it onto my 'Read' shelf, and that has to count for something.
I'll look forward to checking back on the reviews of this book in six months or so to see whether people who read the published copy have similar things to say about the writing style. I'd like to know by how much the ARC I was given differs from the published version.
August 24, 2017
In this refreshingly smart and thought-provoking crime thriller, DI Erica Martin investigates the pernicious culture of cyber-bullying that dominates the lives of students at Durham University. The murder of a Fresher is Martin's first case after arriving in the city. Martin herself soon comes under the scrutiny of the local online media - getting a bitter taste of the kind of invisible trolling and emotional harassment that the victim herself was suffering in the weeks before she died. While Bitter Fruits is a classic page-turning crime fiction - with an early unreliable confession, quickly followed by a second victim, and ending on a dramatic twist - it also digs deep into the psychological territory of contemporary social issues. For anyone over the age of 25-30, it opens the lid on an unimaginably distressing world of sexting, trolling and inescapable online bullying. It leaves me glad that I'm neither a detective nor a student in today's cyber-dominated world. Bitter Fruits will appeal to fans of crime fiction, but also to readers who appreciate psychological drama of unusually high quality.
February 2, 2018
Pretty much what you expect of a police procedural/murder mystery, but with a few qualities that I felt really lifted it up a notch or two. First off, the writing is good and so is the story. Just the right amount of suspension of disbelief is needed to accept the happenings, but still get a surprise or two. The characters are good too, the pain and confusion of the college kids trying to find their place and role makes for engaging reading. Best is, however, DI Erica Martin herself, and oddly enough on account of being quite normal and quite discreet. I found it a great relief to find a heroine that did not fall into any of the quirky, anti-social, self-destructive, ridiculously beautiful, overbearingly righteous, anarchistic, unfairly treated, overly sexual, action sport adrenaline junky - or any combination of the above - category. I'm looking forward to finding out were she goes in the next in the series.
July 27, 2015
As you drive into the city, the view of Durham Cathedral above the river is an absolute knock-out & I so wish I could contrive a reason to return. Failing that, I’ve done the next best & enjoyed a murder mystery set in the university. With its different narrators & dialects, this was a perfect Audible book for car, foot & elliptical machine - unstoppable to the end. I cannot claim to have sussed it tho’ I spotted all the principal clues, but failed to imagine which ones fit together & how, even tho’ Alice Clark-Platts plays absolutely square with the reader - we know what DI Martin knows when she does. I quite liked the voice given the detective. She’s supposed to be from Newcastle & whilst not quite Geordie (I’d have had trouble understanding her if it were) had a northern flavour & listening brought out a peculiarity I might not have caught in print. The timing of her style of interrogation reminded me so much of Detective Colombo’s - concluding an apparently innocuous conversation with a pause & then as a seemingly casual afterthought, asking the killer query that homes in on the suspect like an Exocet missile & blows the fishy alibi clear out of the water. Do they teach this @ detective school?
Despite the uni setting, this is not a story like The Secret History or After I Left You about good friends. Despite their claims, the students are frenemies @ best - most appropriately in a story featuring the very current topics of online-bullying & revenge-porn. Additionally, the supporting cast of parents, uni administrators, & a local journalist, all have something dubious about them. That the minor characters are so well depicted actually seems like a flaw as they vanish @ the end with so many conflicts unresolved in the reader’s mind. For me that was especially true for Annabelle, who would have been the victim Emily’s BF if I’d been writing this book. We also are given only glimpses of DI Martin’s backstory & personal life = she has clearly a lot of baggage. So no 5th star for a good one-time read.
Despite the uni setting, this is not a story like The Secret History or After I Left You about good friends. Despite their claims, the students are frenemies @ best - most appropriately in a story featuring the very current topics of online-bullying & revenge-porn. Additionally, the supporting cast of parents, uni administrators, & a local journalist, all have something dubious about them. That the minor characters are so well depicted actually seems like a flaw as they vanish @ the end with so many conflicts unresolved in the reader’s mind. For me that was especially true for Annabelle, who would have been the victim Emily’s BF if I’d been writing this book. We also are given only glimpses of DI Martin’s backstory & personal life = she has clearly a lot of baggage. So no 5th star for a good one-time read.
July 22, 2021
*4.5/5 Stars*
Bitter Fruits is a moody and magnetic delight. It’s exactly the sort of book I require on a dark, stormy day to accompany a mug of strong tea. A fellow GR reviewer, Liz, described it as slightly reminiscent of beloved cult-favorite, The Secret History, and I couldn’t agree more. Within the first few pages I knew I had fallen completely, hook, line and sinker.
This is the story of the life and death of Emily Brabents, an attractive, charismatic freshman at Durham University. The shocking discovery of her body casts a pall of suspicion upon both faculty and students alike. It’s up to DI Erica Martin to untangle a vast web of lies, navigate the seedy social scene of the college and above all, use shrewd discernment to understand what made Emily tick.
“The disease is fame and the cure is the Internet.” At the crux of the novel lies this central theme of wanting to feel seen. While this is a normal and natural egoic desire at its core, Clark-Platts examines its extreme- the modern day addiction to fame that plagues many of today’s youth. In Bitter Fruits, the University culture is marked by deceit and manipulation. In a world where everything is documented, clawing your way up the social ladder requires a special kind of maneuvering. Much to her horror, DI Martin soon discovers that the exchange of compromising photos is the preferred form of currency among the student body. Female promiscuity is another intoxicating token of leverage, offering power, status and that ever-elusive 5 seconds of fame. But at what cost?
It’s easy to become smitten with Clark-Platt’s fictionalized Durham. The looming grandiosity of the gothic cathedral, the quaint cobblestone streets, the bubbling waters of the weir and the brooding gray skies all paint an inviting picture and lure you ever deeper into this sordid tale.
Bitter Fruits is a rich and rewarding character study with a brilliantly unfolding plot. It wasn’t long until I found myself transfixed and hungry for more. The only cure is to stay up late into the night and see the story through to the end! This stirring and atmospheric psychological mystery has put Alice Clark-Platts firmly on my radar
Bitter Fruits is a moody and magnetic delight. It’s exactly the sort of book I require on a dark, stormy day to accompany a mug of strong tea. A fellow GR reviewer, Liz, described it as slightly reminiscent of beloved cult-favorite, The Secret History, and I couldn’t agree more. Within the first few pages I knew I had fallen completely, hook, line and sinker.
This is the story of the life and death of Emily Brabents, an attractive, charismatic freshman at Durham University. The shocking discovery of her body casts a pall of suspicion upon both faculty and students alike. It’s up to DI Erica Martin to untangle a vast web of lies, navigate the seedy social scene of the college and above all, use shrewd discernment to understand what made Emily tick.
“The disease is fame and the cure is the Internet.” At the crux of the novel lies this central theme of wanting to feel seen. While this is a normal and natural egoic desire at its core, Clark-Platts examines its extreme- the modern day addiction to fame that plagues many of today’s youth. In Bitter Fruits, the University culture is marked by deceit and manipulation. In a world where everything is documented, clawing your way up the social ladder requires a special kind of maneuvering. Much to her horror, DI Martin soon discovers that the exchange of compromising photos is the preferred form of currency among the student body. Female promiscuity is another intoxicating token of leverage, offering power, status and that ever-elusive 5 seconds of fame. But at what cost?
It’s easy to become smitten with Clark-Platt’s fictionalized Durham. The looming grandiosity of the gothic cathedral, the quaint cobblestone streets, the bubbling waters of the weir and the brooding gray skies all paint an inviting picture and lure you ever deeper into this sordid tale.
Bitter Fruits is a rich and rewarding character study with a brilliantly unfolding plot. It wasn’t long until I found myself transfixed and hungry for more. The only cure is to stay up late into the night and see the story through to the end! This stirring and atmospheric psychological mystery has put Alice Clark-Platts firmly on my radar
July 3, 2015
First class thriller, and an excellent debut by someone who can best be described as a beautiful, technically-gifted writer.
The characterisation is sophisticated and entirely believable. The story is on point, and the writing style and use of language is second to none.
Well done Clark-Platts on a stunning first novel. Bring on the next one.
The characterisation is sophisticated and entirely believable. The story is on point, and the writing style and use of language is second to none.
Well done Clark-Platts on a stunning first novel. Bring on the next one.
June 24, 2015
I was fortunate n getting my copy from Real Readers before publication for an honest review.
Detective Inspector Martin had just joined the Durham police force and straight away had a murder to deal with. Emily Brabens is found dead in the weir and as DI Martin goes to the college to inform them and find out what she could about the dead girl she is surprised to find one of the fellow students confess immediately Simon Rush said he had pushed her into the weir. When DI Martin and DS Jones question him at the station all is not as it seems. Emily tried so hard to fit in at the college but she had seemed to go the wrong way about it and had only one true friend, Daniel Shepherd. Did Simon really kill Emily? and why?. As they delve further into the private lives of the students a sordid picture emerges and throughout the whole investigation the reader is treated to an insight from the killer with pages of his or her thoughts but never indicating who they are.The twist nearing the end is surprising but wait! that's not the only one.
I very rarely enjoy a book this much and Alice Clark- Platts has hit the ground running with this first novel. I hope there are many more to come as I will definately be looking out for them.
Detective Inspector Martin had just joined the Durham police force and straight away had a murder to deal with. Emily Brabens is found dead in the weir and as DI Martin goes to the college to inform them and find out what she could about the dead girl she is surprised to find one of the fellow students confess immediately Simon Rush said he had pushed her into the weir. When DI Martin and DS Jones question him at the station all is not as it seems. Emily tried so hard to fit in at the college but she had seemed to go the wrong way about it and had only one true friend, Daniel Shepherd. Did Simon really kill Emily? and why?. As they delve further into the private lives of the students a sordid picture emerges and throughout the whole investigation the reader is treated to an insight from the killer with pages of his or her thoughts but never indicating who they are.The twist nearing the end is surprising but wait! that's not the only one.
I very rarely enjoy a book this much and Alice Clark- Platts has hit the ground running with this first novel. I hope there are many more to come as I will definately be looking out for them.
July 2, 2015
A female Detective Inspector, new to Durham, has the murder of a first-year university student as her first case. An early confession makes it seems like the crime won’t need much investigating, but things are rarely as simple as they seem.
I was pleased to receive this from the Real Readers programme as I’m a big fan of crime fiction and particularly enjoy crime novels with a female protagonist. Sadly I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, finding it derivative and written in a style I found irritating in places.
In terms of plot, I can’t really say anything about what goes on for fear of spoiling it for other readers. However, there are a couple of elements which are so old and creaky that they must be well beyond pension age by now. The denouement made me question why I’d spent my time reading it, and I have to admit I wondered how a book with such use of clichéd plotting managed to get published.
I found the writing at the opening of the book (a description of the victim at the crime scene) very purple and adolescent. Throughout the novel the author also seems determined to hammer home the division of “town and gown” in Durham by way of descriptions of the river cutting off the university from the rest of the city. I understood this at the first instance, but found its frequent repetition unnecessary and irritating. The author seems fond of the word ‘bisected’ but does not always use it correctly. Bisect means to divide into two parts, so saying that a river is bisected by several bridges isn’t a correct use of the word. I found all these (and some other linguistic points) jarring and they only served to stop me becoming immersed in the book.
I thought that Detective Inspector Martin was a bland character with nothing to get hold of in her personality. She comes with the requisite relationship problems, issues with authority and fight against sexism that are de rigueur for a female police officer in fiction. I assume that this is the first book in a series, which may reveal more about Martin as it goes along, but I could have done with something about her which would make me engage with her in this book.
The discussion of social media and the treatment of young women by their male counterparts is a timely one, but the book does it in a simplistic manner and doesn't really allow the reader to sympathise with the victim.
All in all I found Bitter Fruits bland in some places, irritating in others, full of crime clichés, and overall no more than “meh”. I was disappointed not to have liked it more and won’t be reading any of the future books in the series.
I was pleased to receive this from the Real Readers programme as I’m a big fan of crime fiction and particularly enjoy crime novels with a female protagonist. Sadly I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, finding it derivative and written in a style I found irritating in places.
In terms of plot, I can’t really say anything about what goes on for fear of spoiling it for other readers. However, there are a couple of elements which are so old and creaky that they must be well beyond pension age by now. The denouement made me question why I’d spent my time reading it, and I have to admit I wondered how a book with such use of clichéd plotting managed to get published.
I found the writing at the opening of the book (a description of the victim at the crime scene) very purple and adolescent. Throughout the novel the author also seems determined to hammer home the division of “town and gown” in Durham by way of descriptions of the river cutting off the university from the rest of the city. I understood this at the first instance, but found its frequent repetition unnecessary and irritating. The author seems fond of the word ‘bisected’ but does not always use it correctly. Bisect means to divide into two parts, so saying that a river is bisected by several bridges isn’t a correct use of the word. I found all these (and some other linguistic points) jarring and they only served to stop me becoming immersed in the book.
I thought that Detective Inspector Martin was a bland character with nothing to get hold of in her personality. She comes with the requisite relationship problems, issues with authority and fight against sexism that are de rigueur for a female police officer in fiction. I assume that this is the first book in a series, which may reveal more about Martin as it goes along, but I could have done with something about her which would make me engage with her in this book.
The discussion of social media and the treatment of young women by their male counterparts is a timely one, but the book does it in a simplistic manner and doesn't really allow the reader to sympathise with the victim.
All in all I found Bitter Fruits bland in some places, irritating in others, full of crime clichés, and overall no more than “meh”. I was disappointed not to have liked it more and won’t be reading any of the future books in the series.
June 23, 2015
Bitter Fruits - Alice Clark Platts
I love debut novels. They are such a lottery. They can be dire and finishing them can feel like wading through treacle. They can be okay and you sense some promise and defer ultimate judgement until the next one. Or they can completely blow you away.
I couldn't put this book down and I mean that literally. Everything was put on hold until I finished it.
I hesitate to use the word brilliant because it is overused and my response is subjective but for me this wasn't far short.
It’s a deceptive book and more substantial than it seems at first. And yet curiously there is a danger that this substance could be overlooked as the reader focuses purely on the crime aspect because it is so well done the attention doesn't stray.
The plot is tight, well constructed with a veritable shoal of red herrings to lure the reader into believing they have solved this crime. The characters are believable. There is no holding back when highlighting some of today’s contemporary issues; internet bullying so endemic nowadays, the morality of the media, or their lack of it, the dynamics of a police force pressured into delivering results unreasonably quickly to satisfy the bureaucrats and social commentators as if catching a murderer is so easy. And throughout the book how hard it is to be a young person in today’s world. I could go on the book has such a to to offer.
There were imperfections; the story uses a dual narrative technique and there were a couple of inconsistencies, for example a character developed in the first narrative was suddenly mentioned in the second with no exposition. Some of the descriptive passages were so typical of a debut novel, that desire to demonstrate all at once the writer’s abilities. But I’m nit picking and this book doesn't deserve it.
I’m very excited by this writer and I do hope there are more tales of this calibre to issue forth from her pen. Alice Clark-Platts? I am a fan.
I love debut novels. They are such a lottery. They can be dire and finishing them can feel like wading through treacle. They can be okay and you sense some promise and defer ultimate judgement until the next one. Or they can completely blow you away.
I couldn't put this book down and I mean that literally. Everything was put on hold until I finished it.
I hesitate to use the word brilliant because it is overused and my response is subjective but for me this wasn't far short.
It’s a deceptive book and more substantial than it seems at first. And yet curiously there is a danger that this substance could be overlooked as the reader focuses purely on the crime aspect because it is so well done the attention doesn't stray.
The plot is tight, well constructed with a veritable shoal of red herrings to lure the reader into believing they have solved this crime. The characters are believable. There is no holding back when highlighting some of today’s contemporary issues; internet bullying so endemic nowadays, the morality of the media, or their lack of it, the dynamics of a police force pressured into delivering results unreasonably quickly to satisfy the bureaucrats and social commentators as if catching a murderer is so easy. And throughout the book how hard it is to be a young person in today’s world. I could go on the book has such a to to offer.
There were imperfections; the story uses a dual narrative technique and there were a couple of inconsistencies, for example a character developed in the first narrative was suddenly mentioned in the second with no exposition. Some of the descriptive passages were so typical of a debut novel, that desire to demonstrate all at once the writer’s abilities. But I’m nit picking and this book doesn't deserve it.
I’m very excited by this writer and I do hope there are more tales of this calibre to issue forth from her pen. Alice Clark-Platts? I am a fan.
June 27, 2015
Book review
Bitter Fruits by Alice Clark-Platt
A interesting murder mystery
For a first novel this book keeps you hooked, draws you in, endears you to the characters and gives you a lovely twist at the end.
This style of book is exactly what I enjoy. Something to grip my imagination and that makes me try beat the story line to work out who did the deed. Well two thirds of the way through I worked it out but although I was right, I was also wrong. In order to explain that I would need to give away the catch and that would not be fair you need to read the book, enjoy it and find out for yourself.
DI Martin is a character I would like to read more of in the future. Her first case in a new county and job was definitely, as Doctor Walsh predicts at the the beginning, "a baptism of fire", but she got her killer and proved her worth.
Bitter Fruits by Alice Clark-Platt
A interesting murder mystery
For a first novel this book keeps you hooked, draws you in, endears you to the characters and gives you a lovely twist at the end.
This style of book is exactly what I enjoy. Something to grip my imagination and that makes me try beat the story line to work out who did the deed. Well two thirds of the way through I worked it out but although I was right, I was also wrong. In order to explain that I would need to give away the catch and that would not be fair you need to read the book, enjoy it and find out for yourself.
DI Martin is a character I would like to read more of in the future. Her first case in a new county and job was definitely, as Doctor Walsh predicts at the the beginning, "a baptism of fire", but she got her killer and proved her worth.
March 17, 2016
My View:
A brilliant debut novel - considered and intelligent this book discusses the murder of a young woman and explores the psychology of those involved and follows the trail that lead to her death. Tightly woven into the fabric of this multi faced narrative are the some very relevant contemporary social issues; identity, feminism, online bullying, abuse of trust and power and sexism.
This narrative steers a clear path to discovery; this is not a book that is character lead, although there are several interesting characters here and I hope to see more of DI Martin in the future; this is an expose of evilness, obsession, narcissism and control and demonstrates just how easily the inexperienced can be manipulated- in persona and online. The influence of social media on the “look at me” generation is revealing and disturbing.
The dual narration works particularly well and slowly you are drawn into the campus social world and the lives of the main characters. As your involvement deepens the pace picks up and a psychological war zone is entered – a battle between good and evil - between DI Martina and the villain of the peace.
The twist in the conclusion, when revealed, is totally unexpected and pacts an enormous punch! A great read.
A brilliant debut novel - considered and intelligent this book discusses the murder of a young woman and explores the psychology of those involved and follows the trail that lead to her death. Tightly woven into the fabric of this multi faced narrative are the some very relevant contemporary social issues; identity, feminism, online bullying, abuse of trust and power and sexism.
This narrative steers a clear path to discovery; this is not a book that is character lead, although there are several interesting characters here and I hope to see more of DI Martin in the future; this is an expose of evilness, obsession, narcissism and control and demonstrates just how easily the inexperienced can be manipulated- in persona and online. The influence of social media on the “look at me” generation is revealing and disturbing.
The dual narration works particularly well and slowly you are drawn into the campus social world and the lives of the main characters. As your involvement deepens the pace picks up and a psychological war zone is entered – a battle between good and evil - between DI Martina and the villain of the peace.
The twist in the conclusion, when revealed, is totally unexpected and pacts an enormous punch! A great read.
March 21, 2015
This is a superior murder mystery, partly seen from the point of view of the police in Durham, who are investigating the murder of a young student at the university there, and partly narrated by another mysterious student, Daniel. It's very well-written, and explores themes of the exploitation of women and the dangers of the internet and social media. The murdered woman, Emily, acts all too believably in her attempts to gain favour with the rich and privileged men at the university, and the ending holds a killer twist.
July 1, 2015
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Kept me intrigued throughout & im already looking forward to reading more from this new author.
Have to say I found a previous review completely outrageous & it makes me wonder if the reviewer has a more "personal" agenda?
I for one will be recommending it to my book club & other friends!!!
Have to say I found a previous review completely outrageous & it makes me wonder if the reviewer has a more "personal" agenda?
I for one will be recommending it to my book club & other friends!!!
July 2, 2015
Wonderful! Bitter Fruits makes gripping reading from beginning to end. Alice Clark Platts has produced one of the most confident and compelling debut novels I've read in a long while. Can't wait to see more from this talented lady.
July 16, 2019
I enjoyed the subject matter just not how it was delivered. Way too slow and I listened to the audio and the narrators were just boring plus the accent was pretty thick so some of the references I didn't always get. I wish I liked it more but meh.
Just okay Read!
Just okay Read!
September 23, 2017
Bitter Fruits is an impressive debut novel which is both police procedural and part psychological thriller and proves gripping, eerily atmospheric and sheds light on the inescapable pressures and strains that come with being thrown into an all consuming environment; specifically one of the bastions of higher education and privilege that can be alien territory to those unprepared for the experience. This is a story which explores the death of a student from both the aspect of establishing guilt, right through to the underpinnings and psychology of those closely linked to the victim in the run up to her demise. Newly transplanted from Newcastle CID to the hallowed university town of Durham, just three-weeks into her new job sees DI Erica Martin given a baptism of fire when Regatta weekend results in the discovery of Joyce College fresher, Emily Brabents, dead body in the weir. With eyes glazed, clad in only a t-shirt, evidence of self harming and nasty marks around her neck, DI Martin suspects murder. But with an off the bat confession from a fellow student, elected president Simon Rush, an overly involved College President, Phillip Mason, and a college culture of trolling, cyber-bullying and online sexual harassment rife, DI Martin and her sidekick, DS Jones, have their work cut out. With Rush promptly handed over for a psychiatric evaluation DI Martin attempts to gain a handle on Emily’s complex personality and finds herself faced with a naive and insecure young woman under the misconception that allowing gratuitous and pornographic photos and videos of herself to be circulated somehow equated to empowering feminist behaviour.
The majority of the storyline is narrated in the third person and focuses on DI Martin’s endeavours, however this is complemented with the interspersed journal entries of sensitive English student and outsider, Daniel Shepherd, with his deeply ironic and scathing view of the culture within the university, and some snippy commentary by online journalist, Sean Egan of The Durham Chronicle. Distinctions between each of these elements of the narrative are well-marked and this make-up draws the reader into a fascinating expose of the salacious details of the permissive student culture, some of which is admittedly a little far-fetched (Emily’s willingness for photos to be openly shared, not to mention that the college authorities knowingly permitting such behaviour). With DI Martin and DS Jones attempting to get to grips with Emily’s social circle and pinning down her immature best friend, Annabel, and odious boyfriend, Nick, as they wait to resume questioning Simon Rush, suspicion starts to fall on Emily’s background and quick-tempered father, Michael Brabents. However, as the mysterious Daniel Shepherd refuses to surface, DI Martin attempts to clarify his part in Emily’s story through his email correspondence with compromised university counsellor, Stephanie Suleiman. Although the pace of the investigation does flounder a little as the second half opens and the convoluted denouement risks confusion, the superior psychological aspects of Bitter Fruits makes this a solid four star read.
DI Erica Martin is more of a thinker as opposed to a grafter and remains an enigmatic presence as she conducts operations under the eyes of the university and a local media who seems to be curiously well-informed. As pressure comes from her superiors and with tourism and university morale reliant on and speedy resolution, DI Martin’s steadfast refusal to be rushed is to her credit. Having moved to the market town of Chester-le-Street, Martin’s marriage is increasingly showing strains with her older husband, Jim, slow to settle in and Bitter Fruits hints at a latent attraction between her and boss, DCI Sam Butterworth although this is never explored. However, for the most part, Clark-Platts lets an gritty plot and untangling the mess drive the novel and thankfully does not seem to feel the need to encumber her protagonist with either maverick tendencies or myriad problems. It is this sound emphasis on getting to grips with who Emily was as opposed to the facade she presented before going on to explore just what has made her a victim that is the focus of the novel and introduces a distinctive voice to the world of crime fiction.
I have a predisposition to novels with an academic setting and having had a similar university experience to Durham and a sister who attended, I felt it really captured the often stifling atmosphere and the desire to fit in and be accepted amongst ones peers. Some of the pretentiousness surrounding revered Joyce College was, I fear, a little over-embellished more from the side of the college authorities who seemed to willingly buy into the whole culture of bullying which is a ludicrously unlikely scenario. Whilst I doubt that such a culture would ever be allowed to rear its head in such a cloistered college setting, this does not stop Bitter Fruits proving compelling and memorably different from the ranks of mainstream crime fiction. Clark-Platts has crafted a literary debut crime novel which is intelligently written and makes some insightful and damning points on an increasingly digital age where the younger generations can be drawn into a dog-eat-dog world of online naming and shaming and go to extraordinary lengths to be accepted by their peers. This is a series that I intend to continue with and I have already purchased Alice Clark-Platts follow-up, The Taken, featuring a return for DI Erica Martin.
The majority of the storyline is narrated in the third person and focuses on DI Martin’s endeavours, however this is complemented with the interspersed journal entries of sensitive English student and outsider, Daniel Shepherd, with his deeply ironic and scathing view of the culture within the university, and some snippy commentary by online journalist, Sean Egan of The Durham Chronicle. Distinctions between each of these elements of the narrative are well-marked and this make-up draws the reader into a fascinating expose of the salacious details of the permissive student culture, some of which is admittedly a little far-fetched (Emily’s willingness for photos to be openly shared, not to mention that the college authorities knowingly permitting such behaviour). With DI Martin and DS Jones attempting to get to grips with Emily’s social circle and pinning down her immature best friend, Annabel, and odious boyfriend, Nick, as they wait to resume questioning Simon Rush, suspicion starts to fall on Emily’s background and quick-tempered father, Michael Brabents. However, as the mysterious Daniel Shepherd refuses to surface, DI Martin attempts to clarify his part in Emily’s story through his email correspondence with compromised university counsellor, Stephanie Suleiman. Although the pace of the investigation does flounder a little as the second half opens and the convoluted denouement risks confusion, the superior psychological aspects of Bitter Fruits makes this a solid four star read.
DI Erica Martin is more of a thinker as opposed to a grafter and remains an enigmatic presence as she conducts operations under the eyes of the university and a local media who seems to be curiously well-informed. As pressure comes from her superiors and with tourism and university morale reliant on and speedy resolution, DI Martin’s steadfast refusal to be rushed is to her credit. Having moved to the market town of Chester-le-Street, Martin’s marriage is increasingly showing strains with her older husband, Jim, slow to settle in and Bitter Fruits hints at a latent attraction between her and boss, DCI Sam Butterworth although this is never explored. However, for the most part, Clark-Platts lets an gritty plot and untangling the mess drive the novel and thankfully does not seem to feel the need to encumber her protagonist with either maverick tendencies or myriad problems. It is this sound emphasis on getting to grips with who Emily was as opposed to the facade she presented before going on to explore just what has made her a victim that is the focus of the novel and introduces a distinctive voice to the world of crime fiction.
I have a predisposition to novels with an academic setting and having had a similar university experience to Durham and a sister who attended, I felt it really captured the often stifling atmosphere and the desire to fit in and be accepted amongst ones peers. Some of the pretentiousness surrounding revered Joyce College was, I fear, a little over-embellished more from the side of the college authorities who seemed to willingly buy into the whole culture of bullying which is a ludicrously unlikely scenario. Whilst I doubt that such a culture would ever be allowed to rear its head in such a cloistered college setting, this does not stop Bitter Fruits proving compelling and memorably different from the ranks of mainstream crime fiction. Clark-Platts has crafted a literary debut crime novel which is intelligently written and makes some insightful and damning points on an increasingly digital age where the younger generations can be drawn into a dog-eat-dog world of online naming and shaming and go to extraordinary lengths to be accepted by their peers. This is a series that I intend to continue with and I have already purchased Alice Clark-Platts follow-up, The Taken, featuring a return for DI Erica Martin.
Read
July 3, 2015Published by: Penguin (2nd July 2015)
ISBN: 978-0718180966
Source: Real Readers
Rating: 4*
Synopsis:
The murder of a first-year university student shocks the city of Durham. The victim, Emily Brabents, was from the privileged and popular set at Joyce College, a cradle for the country's future elite.
As Detective Inspector Erica Martin investigates the college, she finds a close-knit community fuelled by jealousy, obsession and secrets. But the very last thing she expects is an instant confession . . .
The picture of Emily that begins to emerge is that of a girl wanted by everyone, but not truly known by anyone. Anyone, that is, except Daniel Shepherd. Her fellow student, ever-faithful friend and the only one who cares. The only one who would do anything for her . . .
My review:
I enjoy reading debut novels as you never quite know what you are going to get. Much of my reading this year has been debut crime by female authors, many of them fantastic books, with the authors fast becoming my new favourites. When Bitter Fruits landed on my bookshelf, I was eager to see whether Alice Clark-Platts could compete with her peers.
Unlike some books of this genre that give background on characters for the first couple of chapters, the very first words of Bitter Fruits tell us that a body has been found; Clark-Platts gets straight to the point, urging the reader to make use of their detective skills straight away.
Who had died? Was it murder? What happened? Is there a killer on the loose? The reason I read so many crime novels is to see if I can work out 'whodunit' and I suspect I'm not alone. My interest was immediately piqued the moment the body was revealed.
Next, we meet recently promoted Detective Inspector Erica Martin. Transferred from Newcastle to head up Durham's Major Crime unit, Martin needs to validate her position by solving this case, quickly.
Martin was a bit of a slow burner for me. I didn't immediately like her, but by the end of the book I felt like she was an old friend. The slightly vulnerable side of her regarding her position, combined with her believability, won through.
The story is told from two perspectives, Erica's and an unnamed person. On the whole, this worked very well; that they are in different fonts makes it easy to know who is behind each chapter. There was a tiny bit of inconsistency, but that matters not in the grand scheme of things.
The timely inclusion of cyber bullying adds another dimension to the plot, but the way it is approached doesn't give the reader much reason to empathise with victim Emily. I feel this was a missed opportunity to a certain extent. As Martin and second-in-command DS Jones are both women, I would have preferred a more sympathetic approach.
There are so many red herrings on the way to finding out who killed Emily. When the murderer's identity is finally revealed, it was such a shock! I was not expecting that!
An impressive debut from Clark-Platts and a realistic DI in Erica Martin. The start of a terrific series? I look forward to finding out.
ISBN: 978-0718180966
Source: Real Readers
Rating: 4*
Synopsis:
The murder of a first-year university student shocks the city of Durham. The victim, Emily Brabents, was from the privileged and popular set at Joyce College, a cradle for the country's future elite.
As Detective Inspector Erica Martin investigates the college, she finds a close-knit community fuelled by jealousy, obsession and secrets. But the very last thing she expects is an instant confession . . .
The picture of Emily that begins to emerge is that of a girl wanted by everyone, but not truly known by anyone. Anyone, that is, except Daniel Shepherd. Her fellow student, ever-faithful friend and the only one who cares. The only one who would do anything for her . . .
My review:
I enjoy reading debut novels as you never quite know what you are going to get. Much of my reading this year has been debut crime by female authors, many of them fantastic books, with the authors fast becoming my new favourites. When Bitter Fruits landed on my bookshelf, I was eager to see whether Alice Clark-Platts could compete with her peers.
Unlike some books of this genre that give background on characters for the first couple of chapters, the very first words of Bitter Fruits tell us that a body has been found; Clark-Platts gets straight to the point, urging the reader to make use of their detective skills straight away.
Who had died? Was it murder? What happened? Is there a killer on the loose? The reason I read so many crime novels is to see if I can work out 'whodunit' and I suspect I'm not alone. My interest was immediately piqued the moment the body was revealed.
Next, we meet recently promoted Detective Inspector Erica Martin. Transferred from Newcastle to head up Durham's Major Crime unit, Martin needs to validate her position by solving this case, quickly.
Martin was a bit of a slow burner for me. I didn't immediately like her, but by the end of the book I felt like she was an old friend. The slightly vulnerable side of her regarding her position, combined with her believability, won through.
The story is told from two perspectives, Erica's and an unnamed person. On the whole, this worked very well; that they are in different fonts makes it easy to know who is behind each chapter. There was a tiny bit of inconsistency, but that matters not in the grand scheme of things.
The timely inclusion of cyber bullying adds another dimension to the plot, but the way it is approached doesn't give the reader much reason to empathise with victim Emily. I feel this was a missed opportunity to a certain extent. As Martin and second-in-command DS Jones are both women, I would have preferred a more sympathetic approach.
There are so many red herrings on the way to finding out who killed Emily. When the murderer's identity is finally revealed, it was such a shock! I was not expecting that!
An impressive debut from Clark-Platts and a realistic DI in Erica Martin. The start of a terrific series? I look forward to finding out.
October 9, 2016
This is at the more intelligent and socially-aware end of the crime writing spectrum, though it has some traces of the first novel about it. It centres on the death of a female student at the University of Durham as the police investigation uncovers issues of sex, coercion and bullying.
Clark-Platts keeps it generally realistic rather than overly lurid but the book does paint a very negative picture of university students as well as college authorities. As someone who works at a university ranked similarly to Durham, I know from first-hand experience that not all female students are desperate for male attention and in competition with other women, and that not all male students are this crude, coarse and misogynistic. The idea, too, that college staff could behave in the way they do in this book and get away with it is completely absurd: the internet isn’t just a tool of oppression as it seems to be here, but one which ensures that underground knowledge that ‘everyone knows’ is also made public.
Despite a few reality niggles though this is a gripping read. The police inspector is only lightly drawn and lacks personality but the story itself kept me turning the pages late into the night.
July 4, 2015
The opening sentence sets the tone of chill and suspense for the whole book: 'The body was found in the icy coffin of the weir'.
A new DI has to investigate the death of a student at an elite college and uncovers the self-created seedy side of young, beautiful people. The pace is tight, with clues and dead ends all over the place. I cracked through it because the characters are portrayed vividly and you want to find out what happens to them.
A new DI has to investigate the death of a student at an elite college and uncovers the self-created seedy side of young, beautiful people. The pace is tight, with clues and dead ends all over the place. I cracked through it because the characters are portrayed vividly and you want to find out what happens to them.
August 12, 2015
Sex, lies and online bullying...
When the body of first-year student Emily Brabents is found floating in the weir, it falls to recently promoted Detective Inspector Erica Martin to investigate. Having just transferred to the Durham force, Martin soon discovers what a huge part the prestigious University plays in this city, and the pressure is on to get a quick result before there's too much bad publicity. But as Martin begins her investigation, she discovers that underneath the ancient traditions and academic reputation, Joyce College is awash with sex, secrets and online trolling. And pretty young Emily, desperate to be popular, has been at the centre of much of it, with sexually explicit photographs and videos of her appearing on Facebook, attracting the attention of every bully and troll in the College. But was she the victim of male manipulation that she at first sight would appear to be, or was she deliberately flaunting herself in some kind of skewed vision of feminism? Did the murder have something to do with the trolling or was there another motive – perhaps even something to do with her life outside University? When another student promptly confesses to the crime it looks as if everything will be tied up quickly, but DI Martin's not convinced...
This is an excellent debut novel. It's primarily a police procedural, but one that focuses as much on the psychology of the culture that led to the crime as on who committed it. It's hard hitting, and the storyline means that it is pretty sexually graphic, even salacious, at times – but only within the demands of the plot, so I didn't feel it was gratuitous. Bit too much swearing for my taste, but what's new there, eh? (One wonders if crime writers have to replace the f-key on their computers every ten thousand words or so...)
The story is told mainly from DI Martin's viewpoint, though in the third person (past tense – yay!). She's (and I can't tell you how excited I am to say this) NOT a maverick! Instead, she's an intelligent, dedicated officer who remains sober throughout, doesn't break any laws (well, only one tiny one and she gets her knuckles duly rapped for it), doesn't sleep with anyone except her partner, and doesn't beat anyone up! I think I'm in love! Joking aside, she's reasonably well developed in this one but there's plenty of room for her character to grow in later books. We don't see much of her outside work, but it's clear her relationship is in difficulty, and at work she meets with the usual sexism, both of which did cause me to yawn just a little. But these aspects are merely touched on – the book concentrates almost entirely on the crime and the investigation, which I found deeply refreshing.
We also get to see the story from a different angle – through the journal of another student, Daniel Shepherd. Clark-Platts' writing here is very skilful – Daniel's voice is very different to the main narrative. As an enthusiastic student of classic literature, he writes in a slightly overblown way – not enough to be annoying, but it gives him a very distinctive style of his own. He's a bit of a loner, with a chip on his shoulder about the rich kids in the top colleges, to whom everything seems to come so easily. When the trolling of Emily begins, he at first provides a handy shoulder for her to cry on, but he soon feels he'd be willing to do almost anything to protect her.
The investigation element drags a bit in the middle with Martin putting off interviews with some of the major characters till later – clearly so there than can be a dramatic climax, but it didn't feel wholly credible. But the first section is very strong as we get to know all the characters and begin to find out about what's been happening in the college, and the ending is really great. Even when it becomes clear who the killer is, there's real tension in working out the why of it all and seeing if Martin will be able to get some kind of justice for Emily. The whole psychology of it is the most interesting part and felt to me very real - not just the motivations of both Emily and the killer, but how an institution can develop a kind of sick culture that drags everyone into it, willing or not.
One of the most promising debuts I've read in crime fiction for a long time – I'm very much looking forward to meeting DI Martin again.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin UK – Michael Joseph.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When the body of first-year student Emily Brabents is found floating in the weir, it falls to recently promoted Detective Inspector Erica Martin to investigate. Having just transferred to the Durham force, Martin soon discovers what a huge part the prestigious University plays in this city, and the pressure is on to get a quick result before there's too much bad publicity. But as Martin begins her investigation, she discovers that underneath the ancient traditions and academic reputation, Joyce College is awash with sex, secrets and online trolling. And pretty young Emily, desperate to be popular, has been at the centre of much of it, with sexually explicit photographs and videos of her appearing on Facebook, attracting the attention of every bully and troll in the College. But was she the victim of male manipulation that she at first sight would appear to be, or was she deliberately flaunting herself in some kind of skewed vision of feminism? Did the murder have something to do with the trolling or was there another motive – perhaps even something to do with her life outside University? When another student promptly confesses to the crime it looks as if everything will be tied up quickly, but DI Martin's not convinced...
This is an excellent debut novel. It's primarily a police procedural, but one that focuses as much on the psychology of the culture that led to the crime as on who committed it. It's hard hitting, and the storyline means that it is pretty sexually graphic, even salacious, at times – but only within the demands of the plot, so I didn't feel it was gratuitous. Bit too much swearing for my taste, but what's new there, eh? (One wonders if crime writers have to replace the f-key on their computers every ten thousand words or so...)
The story is told mainly from DI Martin's viewpoint, though in the third person (past tense – yay!). She's (and I can't tell you how excited I am to say this) NOT a maverick! Instead, she's an intelligent, dedicated officer who remains sober throughout, doesn't break any laws (well, only one tiny one and she gets her knuckles duly rapped for it), doesn't sleep with anyone except her partner, and doesn't beat anyone up! I think I'm in love! Joking aside, she's reasonably well developed in this one but there's plenty of room for her character to grow in later books. We don't see much of her outside work, but it's clear her relationship is in difficulty, and at work she meets with the usual sexism, both of which did cause me to yawn just a little. But these aspects are merely touched on – the book concentrates almost entirely on the crime and the investigation, which I found deeply refreshing.
We also get to see the story from a different angle – through the journal of another student, Daniel Shepherd. Clark-Platts' writing here is very skilful – Daniel's voice is very different to the main narrative. As an enthusiastic student of classic literature, he writes in a slightly overblown way – not enough to be annoying, but it gives him a very distinctive style of his own. He's a bit of a loner, with a chip on his shoulder about the rich kids in the top colleges, to whom everything seems to come so easily. When the trolling of Emily begins, he at first provides a handy shoulder for her to cry on, but he soon feels he'd be willing to do almost anything to protect her.
The investigation element drags a bit in the middle with Martin putting off interviews with some of the major characters till later – clearly so there than can be a dramatic climax, but it didn't feel wholly credible. But the first section is very strong as we get to know all the characters and begin to find out about what's been happening in the college, and the ending is really great. Even when it becomes clear who the killer is, there's real tension in working out the why of it all and seeing if Martin will be able to get some kind of justice for Emily. The whole psychology of it is the most interesting part and felt to me very real - not just the motivations of both Emily and the killer, but how an institution can develop a kind of sick culture that drags everyone into it, willing or not.
One of the most promising debuts I've read in crime fiction for a long time – I'm very much looking forward to meeting DI Martin again.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin UK – Michael Joseph.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
July 4, 2015
Hot on the heels of The Girl on the Train, Clark-Platts' sparing prose and carefully constructed character of Daniel, make Bitter Fruits a solid debut novel and a contender for this summer's top "whodunnit" novel.
The novel charts Erica Martin's first investigation in Durham where she is investigating the death of a university student. Emily Brabents is an upper-middle class student attending one of Durham's elite colleges. Her body is found in the weir following the annual regatta. An instant confession looks like this could be an open and shut case but further investigation shows that Emily was far from a normal university student.
An obsessive relationship with her father, an intense and bitter rivalry with her best-friend Annabel and the casual disdain shown to her by her crush Nick are already pressure points for a first year student. But then Nick betrays Emily by taking naked pictures of her without her knowing and posting them online. Vicious trolling commences leaving Emily vulnerable and reviled. In an effort to regain control of her body and to capture Nick as her boyfriend, Emily allows Nick to make a video of them having sex but when this hits the internet as well her life comes crashing down. All the girls hate her, all the boys want to sleep with her, but which of them is obsessed enough to kill her?
Unlike other novels in this genre Bitter Fruits doesn't rely solely on the "whodunnit?" element to make the book. Clark-Platts uses the premise as a vehicle to make the reader think about relevant social issues. Is there equality between men and women? Should there be? How do women and men view sex differently? How do women from other cultures view sex and equality? Is the internet a valuable resource or a way for people to self-destruct? How responsible are journalists for the consequences of their work? What really goes on in a privileged college?
The issue of equality is skilfully dealt with in the working life of "Martin" and her colleague "Jones". Hardly ever using their first names as she narrates the investigation shows us how as readers we are sub-consciously prejudice against women police officers. We are so used to the investigator in crime novel being male that we view the idea of a female investigative lead as a novelty. We expect there to be a difference in how Martin is treated in her workplace and how she goes about her investigation. By only using their surnames we forget their gender and find that the issue of their sex is irrelevant to how they go about their job. It was quite jarring when Martin was referred to as Erica the first time.
Interspersed throughout the investigation chapters, which are narrated in the third person, are chapters told in the first person by Emily's friend and confidant, Daniel Shepherd. These are skillfully done reflecting Daniel's literary preferences at the time of each one and his growth as a character. But who is Daniel? When the police start looking for him they can't find anybody else who knows him. It's possible that it could be a pseudonym used by one of the male characters involved in the investigation but none of the details add up to what the reader's know. Who is Daniel? Where is Daniel? And what does he have to do with Emily's murder.
Compelling, well-written, and relevant, Bitter Fruits should definitely be in your suitcase this summer.
The novel charts Erica Martin's first investigation in Durham where she is investigating the death of a university student. Emily Brabents is an upper-middle class student attending one of Durham's elite colleges. Her body is found in the weir following the annual regatta. An instant confession looks like this could be an open and shut case but further investigation shows that Emily was far from a normal university student.
An obsessive relationship with her father, an intense and bitter rivalry with her best-friend Annabel and the casual disdain shown to her by her crush Nick are already pressure points for a first year student. But then Nick betrays Emily by taking naked pictures of her without her knowing and posting them online. Vicious trolling commences leaving Emily vulnerable and reviled. In an effort to regain control of her body and to capture Nick as her boyfriend, Emily allows Nick to make a video of them having sex but when this hits the internet as well her life comes crashing down. All the girls hate her, all the boys want to sleep with her, but which of them is obsessed enough to kill her?
Unlike other novels in this genre Bitter Fruits doesn't rely solely on the "whodunnit?" element to make the book. Clark-Platts uses the premise as a vehicle to make the reader think about relevant social issues. Is there equality between men and women? Should there be? How do women and men view sex differently? How do women from other cultures view sex and equality? Is the internet a valuable resource or a way for people to self-destruct? How responsible are journalists for the consequences of their work? What really goes on in a privileged college?
The issue of equality is skilfully dealt with in the working life of "Martin" and her colleague "Jones". Hardly ever using their first names as she narrates the investigation shows us how as readers we are sub-consciously prejudice against women police officers. We are so used to the investigator in crime novel being male that we view the idea of a female investigative lead as a novelty. We expect there to be a difference in how Martin is treated in her workplace and how she goes about her investigation. By only using their surnames we forget their gender and find that the issue of their sex is irrelevant to how they go about their job. It was quite jarring when Martin was referred to as Erica the first time.
Interspersed throughout the investigation chapters, which are narrated in the third person, are chapters told in the first person by Emily's friend and confidant, Daniel Shepherd. These are skillfully done reflecting Daniel's literary preferences at the time of each one and his growth as a character. But who is Daniel? When the police start looking for him they can't find anybody else who knows him. It's possible that it could be a pseudonym used by one of the male characters involved in the investigation but none of the details add up to what the reader's know. Who is Daniel? Where is Daniel? And what does he have to do with Emily's murder.
Compelling, well-written, and relevant, Bitter Fruits should definitely be in your suitcase this summer.
July 21, 2015
For the locations in the book Booktrail of Bitter Fruits
Life for a first year university student is a serious of challenges and new experiences. Parties, drink, going wild…..but ending up dead? You may not want to read this if you’re starting university anytime soon.
Durham, North East England – the home of a prestigious university high up overlooking the banks of the river Wear, home of the annual Durham Regatta and a beautiful place to live.
But in Bitter Fruits, the river Wear is a crime scene and the corridors of Durham University are awash with secrets, lies, cover ups and obsession.
From the moment the novel opens at the discovery of the body, Prebends Bridge flanked by bushy trees and a neat riverside walk, becomes a crime scene. The River Wear has only just been a scene of celebration for the students involved in the famous Durham Regatta weekend. The safety of the students is now a concern as it the reputation of the university itself.
DI Erica Martin has just moved to Durham so this is a new and difficult territory for her. Establishing an investigation within the confines of an enclosed academic environment is not as easy task. Fighting through the web of intrigue to get to the truth is one thing but the dubious confession is the most confusing aspect of all.
University life and the struggle of wanting and trying to fit in are gloriously and chillingly recreated. Some girls including Emily want to be like the men and prove their ‘worth’. The struggle to fit it, the ways to get noticed, the scrutiny of other students via social media. This is a harsh and bleak landscape..
First year at university should be the start of a young person’s future but sometimes as portrayed here it is a complex and slippery slope into the abyss. Social media in a traditional and academic setting makes for a contrast of values – old and new, decaying and fresh, freedom and a sense of entrapment.
Just let me take a breath here. That was quite a read! I’m just thankful I’m not at university anymore. Now, I do realise that this is fiction, but the picture it paints of university life is not one you’d want to be involved with yourself. The backstabbing, weirdos on campus, not to mention the staff…thank goodness this is a novel. A raw stab of a read.
DI Erica Martin, new to Durham and new to the world of academia is a great character who is adept at rooting out the secrets and lies of the students she meets. You find out what she does at the same time via diary entries of Daniel, one of Emily’s fellow students, and the updates of the investigation as one leads back to another and then back again! As the picture forms, life at the university is revealed as a dark and dangerous place. What does go on in the halls of academia?
University life here is a den of cyber bulling and cyber stalking and as you’re drawn deeper into a psychological minefield, there are a lot of issues highlighted here that might just make you stop and think.
Gritty – for the police and the students – and for the reader!
Life for a first year university student is a serious of challenges and new experiences. Parties, drink, going wild…..but ending up dead? You may not want to read this if you’re starting university anytime soon.
Durham, North East England – the home of a prestigious university high up overlooking the banks of the river Wear, home of the annual Durham Regatta and a beautiful place to live.
But in Bitter Fruits, the river Wear is a crime scene and the corridors of Durham University are awash with secrets, lies, cover ups and obsession.
From the moment the novel opens at the discovery of the body, Prebends Bridge flanked by bushy trees and a neat riverside walk, becomes a crime scene. The River Wear has only just been a scene of celebration for the students involved in the famous Durham Regatta weekend. The safety of the students is now a concern as it the reputation of the university itself.
DI Erica Martin has just moved to Durham so this is a new and difficult territory for her. Establishing an investigation within the confines of an enclosed academic environment is not as easy task. Fighting through the web of intrigue to get to the truth is one thing but the dubious confession is the most confusing aspect of all.
University life and the struggle of wanting and trying to fit in are gloriously and chillingly recreated. Some girls including Emily want to be like the men and prove their ‘worth’. The struggle to fit it, the ways to get noticed, the scrutiny of other students via social media. This is a harsh and bleak landscape..
First year at university should be the start of a young person’s future but sometimes as portrayed here it is a complex and slippery slope into the abyss. Social media in a traditional and academic setting makes for a contrast of values – old and new, decaying and fresh, freedom and a sense of entrapment.
Just let me take a breath here. That was quite a read! I’m just thankful I’m not at university anymore. Now, I do realise that this is fiction, but the picture it paints of university life is not one you’d want to be involved with yourself. The backstabbing, weirdos on campus, not to mention the staff…thank goodness this is a novel. A raw stab of a read.
DI Erica Martin, new to Durham and new to the world of academia is a great character who is adept at rooting out the secrets and lies of the students she meets. You find out what she does at the same time via diary entries of Daniel, one of Emily’s fellow students, and the updates of the investigation as one leads back to another and then back again! As the picture forms, life at the university is revealed as a dark and dangerous place. What does go on in the halls of academia?
University life here is a den of cyber bulling and cyber stalking and as you’re drawn deeper into a psychological minefield, there are a lot of issues highlighted here that might just make you stop and think.
Gritty – for the police and the students – and for the reader!
June 27, 2015
Emily Brabents, a student at Durham University, is found murdered in the river and Detective Inspector Erica Martin, a recent arrival in the city, is given the job of investigating the crime. Is a confession by a fellow student to be believed? Martin speaks to those who spent time with Emily to try to find out what she was really like and if her rather surprising private life may have had any bearing on what happened to her. The D.I. needs to speak to her close friend Daniel, but where is he?
'Bitter Fruits' is the first novel from author Alice Clark-Platts and it contains all the ingredients for a successful crime story. Intriguing characters coupled with the format of police procedural chapters interspersed with snippets from Daniel's point of view, makes this a gripping read.
I was a little disappointed in the ending, even though it was surprising and quite original and it also makes you question what you believed to be true throughout the story. My disappointment lies only in the fact that one of the characters wasn't what they seemed.
This would be a great crime novel for a book group to tackle as there are plenty of issues up for discussion - how men perceive women, sexual predators, the downside of online social media and the pressures of belonging to the right crowd.
Alice Clark-Platts is certainly an author to watch out for. Another case featuring D.I. Martin would be most welcome. A big thank you to Real Readers and Penguin Books for the review copy.
'Bitter Fruits' is the first novel from author Alice Clark-Platts and it contains all the ingredients for a successful crime story. Intriguing characters coupled with the format of police procedural chapters interspersed with snippets from Daniel's point of view, makes this a gripping read.
I was a little disappointed in the ending, even though it was surprising and quite original and it also makes you question what you believed to be true throughout the story. My disappointment lies only in the fact that one of the characters wasn't what they seemed.
This would be a great crime novel for a book group to tackle as there are plenty of issues up for discussion - how men perceive women, sexual predators, the downside of online social media and the pressures of belonging to the right crowd.
Alice Clark-Platts is certainly an author to watch out for. Another case featuring D.I. Martin would be most welcome. A big thank you to Real Readers and Penguin Books for the review copy.
May 17, 2015
Alice Clark-Platts is former human rights lawyer that has dealt with the genocide of Rwanda. This is a her first novel, and really I hope not her last. The murder of an innocent young student shocks the college where she studied. DI Erica Martin investigates the case and discovers that all it not what it seems. The story is really compelling, and I can't wait to see another offering by this insightful author.
July 9, 2015
WHY YOU WILL ENJOY THIS NOVEL EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT A CRIME-HEAD.
I am not much of a crime reader, but I devoured the Fruits in 2 days as it caters all the thrills you’d expect from a gripping crime read: the constant pull of suspense, chapter-end cliff-hangers, the dizzying ground-shifting that comes with new leads and shock reveals, a strong, likeable, yet also flawed protagonist who steers us safely through the rapids of her investigation etc.
But to me, this is only surface effects – an even richer reading experience lurks beneath.
The novel does something powerful and daring when using the medium of language itself to get its meaning across: a range of voices, of corroded, brutalised or glossed modes of speaking/imagining/self-representation. It utilises these as vehicles for its underlying analysis of elite college culture, young adult minds in distress, social media culture, family violence. This nudges the narrative into the literary fiction domain and wins me over completely. At its best moments, the book demonstrates how inseparably entwined language and reality-making are and sucks us into the eddying narratives spun by its dark-hearted characters.
While the final who dunnit reveal is utterly surprising and manages to top a long series of red herrings, the novel excites me more by answering the question “who is the victim” than the question “who is the murderer”? Rather than using the maimed female body as semi-pornographic eye-candy and as a mere trigger for the murder-plot (a device as old as human story-telling), Alice Clark-Platt’s novel asks how the human community around this self-destructive young woman is co-responsible for her death – and in turn asks us whether and how we might be involved in such communities ourselves. We don’t just get a smug resolution to a black-and-white, good-vs.-bad sort of crime. We get uncomfortable questions about the crimes of humanity and particularly about how the sweet wrappers of language are used to deliver the blows (see recurring “It’s just a joke” quote).
Any flaws? If you are a seasoned crime aficionado, mechanisms that other readers – including me – find riveting might seem formulaic to you. But this would come to say more about you than about this book. As previously mentioned, by the end we understand more about the victim than the perpetrator of the crime – personally, I was left at a loss trying to sew together all the seams of this highly contradictory character. Also, the personal history of DI Martin might be a tat underexposed. But that’s peripheral.
TO SUM UP: this is a highly promising debut novel which marries some of the best elements of crime and literary fiction in surprising ways. I would definitely recommend it – make sure to read beyond the first 50 pages where the suction gets intense. And look forward to the sequel. From what I’ve seen it’s going to be an absolute killer – I can’t wait!
I am not much of a crime reader, but I devoured the Fruits in 2 days as it caters all the thrills you’d expect from a gripping crime read: the constant pull of suspense, chapter-end cliff-hangers, the dizzying ground-shifting that comes with new leads and shock reveals, a strong, likeable, yet also flawed protagonist who steers us safely through the rapids of her investigation etc.
But to me, this is only surface effects – an even richer reading experience lurks beneath.
The novel does something powerful and daring when using the medium of language itself to get its meaning across: a range of voices, of corroded, brutalised or glossed modes of speaking/imagining/self-representation. It utilises these as vehicles for its underlying analysis of elite college culture, young adult minds in distress, social media culture, family violence. This nudges the narrative into the literary fiction domain and wins me over completely. At its best moments, the book demonstrates how inseparably entwined language and reality-making are and sucks us into the eddying narratives spun by its dark-hearted characters.
While the final who dunnit reveal is utterly surprising and manages to top a long series of red herrings, the novel excites me more by answering the question “who is the victim” than the question “who is the murderer”? Rather than using the maimed female body as semi-pornographic eye-candy and as a mere trigger for the murder-plot (a device as old as human story-telling), Alice Clark-Platt’s novel asks how the human community around this self-destructive young woman is co-responsible for her death – and in turn asks us whether and how we might be involved in such communities ourselves. We don’t just get a smug resolution to a black-and-white, good-vs.-bad sort of crime. We get uncomfortable questions about the crimes of humanity and particularly about how the sweet wrappers of language are used to deliver the blows (see recurring “It’s just a joke” quote).
Any flaws? If you are a seasoned crime aficionado, mechanisms that other readers – including me – find riveting might seem formulaic to you. But this would come to say more about you than about this book. As previously mentioned, by the end we understand more about the victim than the perpetrator of the crime – personally, I was left at a loss trying to sew together all the seams of this highly contradictory character. Also, the personal history of DI Martin might be a tat underexposed. But that’s peripheral.
TO SUM UP: this is a highly promising debut novel which marries some of the best elements of crime and literary fiction in surprising ways. I would definitely recommend it – make sure to read beyond the first 50 pages where the suction gets intense. And look forward to the sequel. From what I’ve seen it’s going to be an absolute killer – I can’t wait!
August 4, 2015
Emily Brabent's, a university student, is found dead in a river and it is up to the new Detective Inspector Erica Martin to solve the case.
Bitter Fruits is told through alternating between Martin's perspective and diary entries from a boy called Daniel Shepard. I liked how the author did this as it really added to the mystery surrounding who Emily was and why she behaved in certain ways. There are many twists and turns, dead ends and red herrings in this story that kept me guessing right up until the end. The novel also interweaves issues of cyber bullying, abuse of power, sexuality and identity into the mystery.
I really enjoyed this book and towards the end I couldn't put it down. I just had to find out who the perpetrator was. The only issue I had with it was I felt it to be overly descriptive in places. Although, this did not detract from the story, I just have a preference for less descriptive writing. I highly recommend this novel and I would definitely read another in the series.
Thank you to the publisher via net galley for my copy to read and review.
Bitter Fruits is told through alternating between Martin's perspective and diary entries from a boy called Daniel Shepard. I liked how the author did this as it really added to the mystery surrounding who Emily was and why she behaved in certain ways. There are many twists and turns, dead ends and red herrings in this story that kept me guessing right up until the end. The novel also interweaves issues of cyber bullying, abuse of power, sexuality and identity into the mystery.
I really enjoyed this book and towards the end I couldn't put it down. I just had to find out who the perpetrator was. The only issue I had with it was I felt it to be overly descriptive in places. Although, this did not detract from the story, I just have a preference for less descriptive writing. I highly recommend this novel and I would definitely read another in the series.
Thank you to the publisher via net galley for my copy to read and review.
August 6, 2015
A very accomplished debut for Alice Clark-Platts. It is a haunting, clever and beautifully written thriller. Set in a traditions-bound university, it challenges our perceptions of what can go on behind the doors of an esteemed college and the students walking its halls. It is a real page-turner - the apparent killer's confession at the beginning of the story kicks off a taut police investigation and I had to keep reading until the very last word to see if I was correct in my "whodunnit" - I wasn't!
Cleverly plotted and a debut to be proud of - looking forward to more from Alice.
Cleverly plotted and a debut to be proud of - looking forward to more from Alice.
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