Unforgiven

by A.J. Holt

The first time Renee Lucas returns to the town of Prosper it is in a spirit of remembrance. For Prosper is where six years ago she buried her stillborn child and where Lauren, her mentally handicapped five-year-old who is now her only companion, was born. Where, at the hands of four drunken teenagers, Lauren soon, horrifyingly, is to die...

Twenty years later Renee Lucas returns to Prosper a second time, having served her sentence for the murder of her child - a crime the town of Prosper connived to see the distraught young mother convicted of. But Renee Lucas now is a very different woman from the Renee Lucas she was then. And this time it's justice she's seeking.

Genres: Mystery Thriller

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

A.J. Holt is a pseudonym used by the Author Christopher Hyde

Reviews

[Rachel Brand · Rating 4 out of 5]

So technically I first read this book in 2004/5, but I could never remember the title or the author in order to log it on here. I remembered a lot of details about the plot (really specific ones) and posted about it on a group here back in 2008. Lots of people commented saying that the book sounded really intriguing, but no one had any leads until 2014, when someone suggested this book--but I missed all the notifications on the thread as Quinn had just been born and we were moving house. Last month I suddenly started getting updates again, and discovered that someone had found the book I'd been looking for for eight years.

Given that I read this book when I was all of 13 or 14, I really wasn't expecting it to be that good, but I hunted down a used copy on Amazon and ploughed through it in a couple of day--mostly because Quinn had a cold and was only napping while snuggled up with me, so there wasn't much else I could do with my time. Although there were some scenes that I could recall pretty much verbatim, there were also a lot of details that I'd forgotten (including one major plot thread) so this reread ended up being pretty engaging, and rather suspenseful towards the end. So given the pretty low rating and lack of reviews on here, I was pleasantly surprised. The premise for this novel and the story that unfolds are pretty original and definitely kept my interest, both as a teenager and as an adult.

That said, this book is so 90s. There's a lot of un-political correctness that you just couldn't get away with in novels now, including one scene where a woman jokes that if anyone finds her with her lover, she'll cry rape. Hilarious (not). It's also pretty obvious that A. J. Holt is a man, even if the main character in this novel is female. With the exception of the heroine, all of the women in this book basically exist to have sex with other male characters. There are some awkward, if brief, moments of sexism and misogyny. I feel like this is probably standard for 90s crime novels written by men? There was entire course taught in the English department at St Andrews on the treatment of women in crime fiction, and I often regret not taking it. This novel thankfully doesn't have any sexual violence in it--which is one of the reasons I stopped reading crime fiction a few years ago, even novels written by women--but there were a few moments where I cringed. The heroine is pretty badass, but that doesn't make up for the weak characterisation of the other women in this novel. It's minimal, and can probably be easily overlooked if this isn't one of your typical pet peeves.

Honestly, that's my only main issue with this book. The ending felt a bit rushed and there was a lot of info-dumping to sum up the conclusion of the mystery, but otherwise I enjoyed my second read of this novel a lot more than I expected. I was just happy that I'd finally found this book after all this time, so actually realising that it was worth reading was an added bonus! If hippy communes, small town corruption, or unlawful imprisonment intrigue you, give this book a shot.