L'Assassin de ma soeur

by Flynn Berry, Flynn Berry

"Imaginez la série policière Broadchurch écrite par Elena Ferrante." Claire Messud

Nora, la petite trentaine, prend le train depuis Londres pour rendre visite à sa sœur dans la campagne. À son arrivée, elle découvre que Rachel a été victime d'un crime barbare. Atomisée par la douleur, Nora est incapable de retourner à sa vie d'avant. Des années auparavant, un événement traumatique a ébranlé sa confiance dans la police ; elle pense être la seule à pouvoir retrouver l'assassin de sa grande sœur. Mais isolée dans ce petit village qui chuchote et épie, isolée – surtout – avec les démons de leur jeunesse sacrifiée, Nora devra souvent se battre avec elle-même pour retrouver la vérité sous la surface brumeuse des souvenirs.

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

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 14, 2016

About the author

Flynn Berry is the New York Times bestselling author of Trust Her (out June 2024), Northern Spy, A Double Life, and Under the Harrow. Northern Spy was a Reese’s Book Club Pick and chosen as one of the ten best thrillers of the year by The New York Times and the Washington Post, and Under the Harrow won the Edgar Award for best first novel.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 20% because I cannot take this main character any longer. Her thoughts bounce around like a kangaroo on a pogo stick and I don't care enough to follow.

[Chelsea Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to thank Penguin books for my copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This one packed quite a punch for such a little book (my actual page count came in at 219). I found myself fluctuating between 3-4 stars but settled on rounding up as the ending went in a different route than I swore it would. I was a little nervous picking up yet another book with a quote stating its "the next Gone Girl", but this was totally different (in a great way!).

This is the story of a murder, sure, but its even more the story of a woman slowly losing her mind. Muahahahahahaha I love psychological thrillers that make you wonder "is this person truly insane or are they just going nuts based on their surrounding stimuli". Unfortuanately, it seems that Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train sparked a whole conga line of books trying to recreate that feeling you get when the narrator is the "bad guy" and you've been duped all along, only this doesn't work so well once everyone has done it a million billion bajillion times. *rant over*

This story is not this type of book. I was pleasantly surprised with the ending and the way the whole story was wrapped up so neatly, but not in an obnoxious way. There is a bad guy (guys?) and I don't feel its spoilery to tell you that. These sisters had serious issues going on, and that is explored in layers which was another satisfying aspect here.

The only thing that threw my groove a bit was the narrator's train of thought. Sister-friend was ALL over the place; sometimes I wanted to give Nora a gentle smack and say "come back to me; get your head in the game!" It clearly wasn't enough to cause me to give up, but it was a bit distracting.

I ended up liking this more than I expected and would consider this style of writing (while much shorter and concise than hers) a similar feel to Tana French. This was very descriptive of setting and the author did a fantastic job making me feel as if I was there.

******WARNING*******
There is a brief scene of violence involving an animal near the beginning. It might be slightly disturbing to some readers.

[Michelle]

DNF

I'm usually down with cray-cray characters but this Nora may just take the cake. I am sooo confused. I'm reading passages over and over again to try to make sense of them.

Example:

"Someone was watching her," I say.

"Nora," says Lewis, "why did you come here?" He stands a head taller than me, and he addresses the question into the space above me.

"I wanted to see the house." He nods, staring over the cliff. "Did you think someone was watching her?"

"No."

Hmm....I thought you JUST SAID that someone was watching her.

Now that I've decided to DNF I came across this popular highlight and I'm really trying to wrap my brain around this one:

It was good to be so scared. The ocean was very large, as was the universe. Which contained the ocean. And the oceans on other planets, and other planets. The fear made the domestic rituals better. The almond croissant, the detective novel, the outdoor shower. Here I am, I thought, taking an outdoor shower in the universe.

Color me confused because I have no idea what the fuck that is supposed to mean. Is it just me?

I hate to be so harsh but this one is really, really bad. Others love this one so maybe it's simply a case of a book not being for me or maybe I'm just not *getting* this one.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received Under the Harrow through Goodreads Giveaways for an honest review. My thanks to Penguin Books and to Flynn Berry for the opportunity.

Sisters.

Family ties that certainly bind. And those bindings make for a gradient trek through the dark pathways that lead you to guarded secrets. Secrets that tumble out from the cupboards of one's life.

Nora lives her life as an assistant to a landscape artist. Nothing remarkable in that or so it seems. Her sister, Rachel, has taken to small town life and lives alone in a country house. Nora hops aboard the train with her destination being a weekend trip to enjoy her sister's company. What Nora meets head-on when she enters this countryside village will certainly untie the laces of your shoes.....dangling, loose, tripping, and faltering. PLEASE NOTE: Within these pages is an encounter with a tragic animal situation. Do not enter if you are of a delicate disposition.

Rachel's murder leaves Nora on the edge of some kind of precarious mental bridge. Her life begins to unravel and she teeters on the brink of free-fall. But Nora is determined to find out what actually led up to her sister's death. Who is responsible and why? The suspects are paraded back and forth in Nora's mind and she listens intently for the death knoll that follows her constantly.

The writing style of Flynn Berry is tightly wound and every situation is described to the nth degree. There was an intense amount of verbiage in the beginning pages to wade through. I had my doubts until Nora got to the village. Then Berry lets loose. There is beauty in the writing and there are lulls of over-abundance in patches.

Flynn Berry describes Nora's sorrow brilliantly: "After two or three miles I stop and weep into my hands. I drop to my knees. Even with my legs pressed to the frozen ground, I still burn, the fire bristling off my spine."

This is a complicated read with very complicated characters. You will adjust and re-adjust your thinking time and time again. Nothing is as it appears. And Berry sees to that. This was a great debut novel. Let's see what is on the horizon for this talented author who presents her novel with secrets slowly revealed and with a storyline encased with very blurred lines.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might be too slow for this book, or maybe it just wasn't good. Honestly it could be either. I couldn't keep anyone straight. I had no idea where the character was 80% of the time. I had no idea what she was talking about 75% of the time. I thought she was in one town, then it turned out she was in the other one. I couldn't figure out what house she was in or why or who she was following or how they related to the story. And the voice of the main character, Nora (it was "Nora", right? Geesh), who was telling the story, told it in this weird, almost a stream-of-consciousness way, that I suppose was meant to be innovative and poetic, but for me it was just confusing. So you can take this review as a commentary on the book or a clue about the reader. I'm really not sure which is more accurate. 2 stars.

[Meredith (Trying to catch up!) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited to read Under the Harrow because it has all of the elements that attract me to thrillers: a shocking murder, unreliable narrator, plot twists, etc. However, my reading experience didn’t match my expectations.

When Nora arrives at her sister Rachel’s house for a visit, she is shocked to find Rachel’s brutally murdered body. The police investigate, but don’t have any clear ideas about who might have committed the crime. Nora becomes obsessed with finding the murderer, and in the process she slowly starts to lose her sanity. She becomes suspicious of everyone who had even the slightest connection to Nora. Determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice, Nora will stop at nothing, even if it means losing her own life.

Something was lacking for me in Under the Harrow. I just couldn’t connect with the narrator, Nora, and I felt like I had read this book before. However, it did have a surprising twist towards the end, which made me adjust my initial rating of two stars to three.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nora, up from London, looking forward to a visit with her sister, Rachel, instead finds her bloody body. Determined that the police find her killer and not shove the case aside, she stays and investigates on her own.

Not sure why this one didn't resonate with me more, it is very atmospheric, dark and bleak (and I usually love dark and bleak). The style of writing took a little getting used to, it is a choppy almost staccato type of prose. Very descriptive though, little things noticed that added a nice touch. But I just couldn't relate to either of these sisters and there is one plot point that I found a little unbelievable though I guess things like that do happen. The pacing in the first half was incredibly slow, almost painfully slow though things picked up on the second.

So good, definitely readable and many loved this one more than I did. A good first effort by a new novelist.

ARC from Netga''ey.

[Kathryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been wracking my brain to come up with something to say about Flynn Berry's Beyond the Harrow But it's just as frustrating to review as it was to read.

The premise is promising: Nora arrives at her sister's Oxfordshire home to find her brutally murdered. Like blood & guts, splatter-movie killed. What an opening. No hesitation, no pausing...just BANG. This book does. not. mess. around. Post-murder, we learn that Nora's sister, Rachel, was brutally attacked as a teenager. Nora, a perpetually irritating character, links Rachel's years-earlier attack to her recent murder and boom goes the crazy. Nora, a seemingly level-headed, pragmatic person, quickly devolves into stark, raving lunacy. But not the fun kind. I just want to shake the girl and shout "GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, WOMAN." Her dysfunction is similar to Rachel Watson's in The Girl on the Train without the mitigating factors. Just....annoying.

Any semblance of intrigue is derailed by Nora's incessant screwball antics. The narrative tension that *should* arise from a decent premise is permanently dispersed. The originally compelling crime is twisty...yes. But in an ultimately unsatisfying way.

Basically: don't waste your time. You'll only end up frustrated by what could have been a dang good thriller.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nicely done debut thriller! It was hard to put down, and at the same time, hard NOT to put down because of the ratcheting tension level. I could only take so much - I'd have to lay it down for 1/2 hour or so and then I couldn't stand not knowing what was going to happen next, so I'd pick it back up. Up, down, up, down, up, down......

The writing is great. Berry has crafted a very atmospheric, moody and suspenseful thriller with haunting narrator, Nora. I was never sure until the very end if she was reliable or not. Not going to give away any spoilers, you'll have to read it and find out!

Highly recommend to thriller lovers. The prose and psychological depth in this one is a step up from most. Loved it.

[Aditi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

----C.S. Lewis


Flynn Berry, an American author, pens a gripping debut psychological thriller, Under the Harrow that unfolds the tale of a sister who finds her elder sister brutally murdered in her house, who then decides to investigate her sister's murder in order to give justice, but this sister is not a huge believer in police's modus operandi and therefore she must find the killer with or without the help of the local authority.


Synopsis:

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.

Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can’t return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora’s fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.

A riveting psychological thriller and a haunting exploration of the fierce love between two sisters, the distortions of grief, and the terrifying power of the past, Under the Harrow marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.


On her visit to her sister, Rachel's house in Oxfordshire, Nora Lawrence finds her elder sister brutally stabbed eleven times along with her pet dog. Immediately Nora decides to find the killer of her sister and will give justice to her dear sister, but she has less faith on the modus operandi of the police who long time ago could not find the person who assaulted Rachel, thus she checks in to a local hotel from where she keeps a close watch of the murder investigation done by the police and Nora is sure that the long time ago assault on Rachel is somehow connected to her murder, so behind the backdrop of the investigation, Nora launches herself on the analysis of her own to know about her sister's secrets and as she goes through her sister's life, it becomes clear to Nora that she hardly ever knew her sister from the inside. So aside her gut-wrenching grief over her sister's death, can Nora find her sister's killer?

The author's writing style is fantastic and is very well structured and laced with a mixture of suspense and emotions. Although the story opens with a lot of ramblings through the main character's thought process, eventually, after few pages, the author pours intense tension with a bit of raw violence that will immediately take the readers up on a roller coaster ride filled with sister drama, edgy thrill and enough excitement. The narrative is also very intense, although most of the time, the readers will find themselves inside the head of the main character, who gradually goes crazy with the weight of her sister's brutal murder and the secrets those set them apart. The dialogues are honest and has power to grip the readers' minds. The pacing varies from being slow to being bit moderate to being fast near the end.

The mystery is concocted with tension and layers those are peeled away by the author eventually with the course of this mind-twisting thriller. The mystery has it own elements to make itself riveting, like other than its usual suspense, it has a lot of anticipating moments and lots of twists that will only intricate the plot if the readers try to build this puzzle on their own. The readers will be taken by surprise with that unexpected climax which is so much depended on this sister relationship that plays a major role in the story.

The characters in the book are well developed and are kept closer to reality. The main character, Nora is a very authentic and everyday character, whose life is not highlighted by anything new or exciting, but one day, this boring lifestyle person's life drastically changes as she comes face-to-face with a heinous dead body of her darling sister, whom she thought knew so well. Nora bravely acts like a mature adult to take responsibility to find out the killer, but it seems the grief and the secrets evolved her into someone different and rather impulsive. All through out the story line, Nora will have this strong psychological grip on the readers' minds and will twist their minds like her mind is getting twisted with each passing day. The sister relationship between Nora and Rachel is depicted evocatively with passion, trust and friendship, and also the author has cleverly strained that relationship by igniting an untold secret between them.

In a nutshell, the story explores a bond that is not only defined by blood but is also defined by love and trust between two sisters and also portrays a spell binding psycho thriller in the foreground of the sisterly tale.

Verdict: A compelling read!

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Flynn Berry's publishers for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this one - probably for different reasons than I would normally enjoy a psychological thriller - Under the Harrow is more psychological melodrama with a main protagonist who is quite obviously an unreliable narrator and whose stream of consciousness prose makes for a lilting if occasionally odd feeling read.

It keeps you off balance - when Nora arrives at her Sister's house to find her murdered, she obviously goes into shock but it is a slow path to mental instability. Obsessed with finding the killer, she takes strange and mostly irrational seeming steps to finding them. At the same time we get a sense of her relationship with Rachel - which over the past years has been defined by an attack Rachel suffered in her younger life.

It is clever writing here if you can let yourself go with it - very unsettling, Nora's thoughts slip from one thing to another and back again seamlessly, sometimes in the same sentence. The sense of place can be hard to grasp because of it, she remembers things from holidays and other events in their lives without due process, her grief is tangible exactly for that reason. At the heart of Under the Harrow is the relationship between siblings, that love/hate/love vibe which can become all mixed up when one loses the other. I found it utterly compelling.

Some of the novel is set in my neck of the woods which made the read all the more poignant for me personally, the solution to who killed Rachel is hidden in the depths of the prose here, this is not really a book where you make best guesses - you just kind of go with it and wait for Nora to get there. The end was melancholy yet fulfilling and Nora is not a character I will forget easily.

Overall I'm a fan of this one. Pushing the boundaries a little in style and substance with some utterly beautiful writing and occasional throw away phrases that just speak to what grief is in an extremely insightful way, I really can't wait to see what Flynn Berry does next.

If you like your psychological thrillers to send you from A to B to C with huge twists and sudden reveals then Under the Harrow won't give you that - what it WILL give you is a considered, intelligent, slow burn journey of discovery which is ultimately rather heart wrenching.

Recommended.

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nora's sister is dead. Through the fog of her grief, one thing is clear: Nora is going to find out who did it. And she's going to make him pay.

The sky foams, like the spindrift of a huge unseen wave is bearing down on us. Who did this to you, I wonder..." pg 9.

As she frantically tries to piece together the last days of Rachel, her sister's life, Nora discovers things she never knew about her secretive sibling. There are some secrets that should have gone to the grave...

"He might have come in the house on one of the days he watched her. She left a key under the mat, he could have let himself in when she was at work or asleep." pg 62

Like other thrillers, Under the Harrow slowly dishes out the clues to the mystery and introduces elements of danger just when the reader is starting to feel comfortable.

"There are too many people I don't recognize, which I hadn't expected. I thought I would be able to note any strangers. Whoever did it might come today." pg 69

It also flirts with the "unreliable narrator" trope. Not in an annoying, over-done way, but, just enough so it makes the reader question the bits of information we are receiving.

Is what we're learning true or only true in Nora's mind?

"I wanted both of us to forget what we had learned. For the past five years, I've pretended that we did forget, and ignored any signs otherwise." pg 83.

Readers experience Nora passing through the stages of grief, sometimes making better choices than other times. She desperately misses her sister.

"It is so easy to think about her. Each memory links to another one, and time doesn't seem to pass at all. I sit for hours remembering, until the first commuters, unbearably sad, begin to arrive, waiting in the darkness on the platform for the early train to London." pg 111

Recommended for readers who enjoy thrillers and quick reads. At less than 250 pages, you can finish this book in one afternoon. I did. :)

[Leslie Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nora has arrived at her sister, Rachel's house, to find she has been brutally murdered, along with her dog.
Warning to animal lovers: this scene is quite upsetting and is referred to several times during the book. Some books are a slow burn but this one provides the gut punch right in the beginning. Rachel sets off to solve the mystery and also deal with her grief. She is in shock and anyone who has lost a loved one, will recognize the flashbacks and jagged thoughts that you go have when there has been a trauma and your world has been upended.
In her quest to find the killer, Nora pushes the limits and almost commits several crimes herself. This was quite nerve wracking for the reader as we want justice too, especially with the somewhat passive police force. There are several red herrings and the answer comes almost as quickly as the incident itself. Having been through a loss, I recognized the meandering thoughts and jagged thinking that comes with it. Thankfully it was not the harsh murder that Nora had to deal with.
I really enjoyed the book except for the loss of the dog and the brutality of his death.

[Fictionophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding debut thriller, "Under the harrow" is a 'harrowing', disturbing, yet compelling read with a twist that is more like a hairpin curve.

Nora Lawrence is a writer whose day job is working for a landscape designer. We first meet Nora, our protagonist/narrator, when she leaves London by train to visit her sister Rachel. Rachel , a nurse, lives in an old farmhouse outside of Oxford. Rachel's job seemed to be stressing her out more than usual of late so Nora intends to cheer her up with a bottle of wine and a weekend of long heart-to-heart chats. What she finds when she arrives at her sister's farmhouse forever changes her life.

Nora is demented with grief.

Her grief and anguish is palpable. She is stunned with shock. She thinks of things she wants to tell Rachel and is in denial of her death. She cannot believe that Rachel will never again listen to her favorite music, watch a film, eat her favorite foods, etc. She cannot believe that her life can go on without her sister, best-friend, and favorite person, Rachel. She cannot fathom a future without Rachel in it. Nora begins to feel survivor's guilt. She is now quite alone in the world.

When just a teenager, Rachel was viciously attacked. Could her murderer be the same man? For years afterward, both sisters actively sought to find this man who had escaped justice.

The police investigation into Rachel's murder is headed by D.I. Moretti from the Thames Valley Police station in Abingdon. He conducts a thorough investigation, but with little result. His DS Lewis becomes over-friendly with Nora...

Then, she finds that her sister has kept things from her. For instance, they both loved Cornwall and had spent a delightful time there the previous summer. It seems as though Rachel had planned to move to Cornwall and had already rented a flat there... and without telling Nora!

The reader becomes uneasy...

The writing is equally riveting and beautiful. It carries the reader along with its perfect descriptive phrases and emotional torment. It contains vivid depictions of raw and tortuous grief whilst at the same time causing an overwhelming feeling of foreboding in the reader. Is Nora who we understand her to be? She seems to be developing a side to her personality that unsettles the reader enough for them to think badly of her... Could Nora be psychotic? Or has Rachel's murder caused her to become unhinged?

This debut is nothing short of exceptional. I loved every moment of reading it and found myself reading when I should have been doing other things. If I can think of one tiny flaw, it would be that the ending seemed a tad rushed. That being said, the ending was very satisfactory and tied up the narrative well.

"Under the harrow" will be near the TOP of my best of 2016 list. I can't recommend it highly enough!

[RhS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nora arrives late for dinner at her sister’s house. Too late. Rachel is dead, the victim of a brutal murder. In the weeks that follow, Nora grapples with grief over Rachel’s death and searches for her killer.

I’m not sure why I love this book. Something about the European setting ... villages, food, wine, trains, pubs, and the sea. Something about sisterhood. (I don’t have a sister but wish I did.) Something about love and grief and the relentlessness of both. Something about how the past and present intertwine to make Rachel a main character even though she died before the opening sentence. Something about imperfection and grace.

That makes the book sound sweet, but it isn’t, really. You’ll find that Nora and Rachel are / were rather gritty.

The narration is difficult to follow. If you can get used to Nora’s pinball mentality, you’ll notice some beautiful thoughts bouncing around the pages.

The plot twists kept me guessing until the end.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe all the lukewarm reviews I'd seen actually worked in my favor for this one, because I was pleasantly surprised by Under the Harrow. In fact, this is probably my favorite thriller that I've read all year - though it's less a thriller than it is an examination of one woman's grief. Maybe those who were underwhelmed by it were expecting a bit more excitement, but I thought the unsettling atmosphere more than made up for it.

Under the Harrow is a dark, bleak, melancholy book that transported me instantly to the English countryside where it's set. One day Nora is on her way from London to visit her sister Rachel, but when she arrives at the house, she finds that Rachel has been brutally murdered. (There's also an upsetting scene involving animal death, so, proceed with caution.) In the following weeks Nora stays in Marlow to help with the investigation, but unable to know who she can trust, her sense of isolation grows alongside her paranoia.

I can't even emphasize how palpable Nora's grief and loneliness are in this book from start to finish - it was so evocative I started to feel like my own sister had just been murdered, and I'm an only child. Nora's relationship with Rachel was so real to me - I was surprised by how much nuance Flynn Berry was able to pack into this short little book. Though it's a very introspective story, as we spend the majority of it inside Nora's head, I didn't think it was slow at all. I was captivated by the tension from the very first page. I wasn't able to guess any of the twists, either, which I love (though some twists I liked more than others, and there are a couple of points which I felt could have used a bit more development or explanation, hence the 4 stars rather than 5... though it's more like a 4.5, really).

The audiobook was a good choice here, I think. The prose itself was occasionally quite staccato in a way which I think would have irritated me more if I'd been reading it, but it suited the narrator's speaking voice and sounded quite natural. I'd highly recommend it if you're thinking about reading this.

[Daniel Folio · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't find anything interesting about the story. I have read Paula Hawkins and I didn't like that either, but at least it was interesting enough to hold my attention until the end.

In Under the Harrow, we seem to find a ratio of one part story to two parts useless description of inane setting. Choppy sentences thrown in seemingly out of the blue. Paraphrasing an example; the inspector grabbed my hand to lead me past the dog. His tie was tucked in to his lapel. The fog had just started to dissipate. We went to his car.

Some people may like this style of writing and I was excited about the hype and popularity this book has generated, but I really just couldn't wait for it to be over.

If you are interested in a similar story, check out Murder in an Irish Village. While not an amazing story, it is much better than Under the Harrow in my opinion.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an intriguing book: a chilly, cerebral examination of a woman’s grief after her sister is violently murdered. I’m left a little distanced by Berry’s approach, but also impressed by her subtlety and interest in examining the complexities of investigating violence against women.

My 3-star rating is reflective of my experience of very little dramatic tension, but I do think that Berry is a talented writer, and I’d be curious to see where she went from here.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Penguin Books and Niemah Thomas I received this ARC for a truthful and unbiased review.

During a routine trip Nora finds her sister Rachel brutally murdered in her Marlow country home. Having a vast distrust of the local authority Nora remains to seek the killer.
As a debut novel this one was very well written. It is easy to become involved with our protagonist and be carried away page by page. There are subtle indicators very early in the novel pointing you towards the murderer - but are you correct? You read on to find out. Then you question your murder solving abilities. More than one person could be responsible. Many are suspected - some are cleared - are you correct in your prediction?
Great suspense, with a surprise ending.

This is an author to watch.

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

”I turn off the lights and crawl under the blanket. I know what’s happening is real, but I do keep expecting her to call.”

Synopsis: Psychological thrillers have never been more confusing in this book only a mother could love.

Biblio-Babble
Paging Mr. Plot, Mr. Where’s the Fucking Plot: This book proclaims it to have a plot, but rest assured: this book has no fucking plot. One reviewer described this book (specifically the main character) as having the attention span of a kangaroo on a pogo stick, and to be honest, that comparison is depressingly accurate. The plot is all over the fucking place. It’s like trying to watch a really bad squash player trying to hit the goddamn ball and failing every time. And with a dual plotline of the sister’s murder and her assault years ago seemingly intertwining with one another in a way that made no sense whatsoever, this book was trying to go too many places at the same time and ending up nowhere in the process.

If You Loved Her, You’d Solve It: While this book is supposed to be about the murder of the main character’s sister, it was also heavily touted as a book about the deep bond between two sisters. And with all the flashbacks this book contains, you would think that the bond would be noticeable. The bond was there, but not in the way I thought it was going to be, and much like the book itself, it was underwhelming. The writing was so disjointed that I couldn’t enjoy the scenes where the sisters interacted in the slightest. You get the feeling that they’re close, but it doesn’t actually show through in the scenes because of the writing. Sister by Rosamund Lupton did a much better job conveying the deep bond sisters can have with each other, but this book just did not make the cut. The main character spent too much time focusing on the past rather than trying to solve the murder in the now.

Right Under Your Nose: After a while, I kind of figured out why there wasn’t an attempt for this book to actually have a plot. The reason there was no plot was because the answer to the murder mystery is given to us RIGHT UNDER OUR FUCKING NOSES. It’s as if the author didn’t even try. The mystery just wasn’t there to begin with. Now how can you call yourself a psychological thriller/mystery if you don’t include it in your own book? That would be like an author writing about Elizabeth I, but conveniently forgot to include Elizabeth I. How much sense does that make. That’s right, none . Just like this book, right here.

All My Darns Flew Away: At some point I just couldn’t take it anymore with this book, as it was going absolutely nowhere. I used my maximum amount of darns. My brain couldn’t take it any longer. I can’t read a book without plot. I can’t read a book where the main character’s thoughts and actions and are all over the place, and I’m to darn old to spend my time wasting it on books that are subpar. This book just makes you not care about anything, which is the exact opposite of what a book should do.
************************
If I could give this book zero stars, I would. If I could give this book negative 5 billion stars I could. But all the stars and ratings in the world would not make up for the atrocity that is this book. The blurb may seem promising enough, but what you get instead is a plot that has more dead ends then a corn maze, a main character that is in no way, shape, or form likable, and an execution that would have even the most untalented writers scratching their heads in confusion. A truly disastrous novel.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I was a bit wary of this book because of the writing style but after about 20 pages, I was hooked. This book kept me guessing until the very end.

Nora, the main character, is definitely an interesting person. Because she is telling the story, you never really know if she's reliable or not. The author is very good at showing her emotional decline after he sister's murder. Nora reminded me a lot of Libby Day from Gillian Flynn's Dark Places...damaged and unlikable.

There are many twists and turns, which I love, and most were unpredictable.

The book is fairly short at 219 pages but it is very dense...there were no moments when I felt like it dragged. I would much rather read a shorter book that packs a big punch than a long book that drags on and on.

I would definitely recommend this one to all of the thriller lovers. It was a great story!

I received this book from Penguin Publishing company in exchange for an honest review.

[Shannon A · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

So okay. This was well written and the story was interesting. But it was too short and didn't give me enough.

[☮Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nora goes to visit her sister Rachel and finds her and her dog have been brutally murdered. Nora of course is distraught, and soon is obsessed with finding the killer she is certain will remain free otherwise. Rachel was attacked once by an unknown assailant so Nora believes whoever that was is the perp here as well.

Told in present tense with Nora as the narrator, it quickly becomes a stream of consciousness flow of thoughts and feelings. That plus the fact that the audio reader sounded so sad and depressed throughout, it was a little hard to concentrate 100%. But I liked where the story went, from one suspect to another, with brave Nora continuing her own investigation and speculations.

I must confess, I didn't understand if the last sentence was significant or not, which means I may have missed something important when my mind had previously wandered off to cleaning the bathroom or something.

[Bookish Ally · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second Flynn Berry novel was a surprise to read. First, I didn’t like the first I read too much, so why would I read another? Second, I didn’t like the first too much, so didn’t expect to like the second but THIS was a cracking good mystery! From the very start, I felt immersed in the plot, being on the train, relaxing, having conversations in my head with a sister I was going to be having dinner with. I love a mystery with all the right detail in all the proper spots. A small distance from a house in which something terrible has happened Norah finds a pile of empty beer cans and dunhill cigarettes and, turning her head, sees that house in framed in a perfect oval; she experiences the unwanted and intrusively constant replaying of a traumatic scene she witnessed. An excellent mystery ! 4 juicy ⭐️ stars

[Magdalena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dual review with Swedish first and then English!

SWEDISH REVIEW

Jag kände mig väldigt kluven under tiden jag läste boken. En del av mig ville verkligen få reda på sanningen om Rachels död, men samtidigt så hade jag svårt för själva berättarstilen. Första persons perspektiv kan vara lurigt. Ibland funkar det, ibland funkar det inte lika bra. Med Sargad måste jag erkänna att jag kämpade med det.

Själva story funkar tack vare att man inte vet om det förflutna har något med Rachels död att göra samt att Nora faktiskt beter sig konstigt, som om hon har något att dölja. Men i och med att det är Nora som är berättaren, så känns det som om man sitter fast i hennes huvud, och hennes tankegångar är inte alltid så klara. Däremot så fann jag inte tillbakablickarna på det förflutna när Nora och rachel var unga så svåra att hänga med i.

Men vad jag verkligen saknade var beskrivningar. Språket kändes så torftigt och det var svårt att få grepp om de andra karaktärerna i boken eftersom Nora i stort sett bara nämnde dem vid namn med aldrig riktigt gav en målande bild av dem. Vilket gjorde att de var lätt att glömda. Detsamma kan sägas om omgivningar etc.

Det är själva fallet, mordet på Rachel som gav liv till denna bok. Jag ville verkligen får reda på vem som hade mördat henne och varför. Och jag är glad att jag fortsatte läsa boken för trots mina problem med berättarstilen så var boken helt OK med ett slut som inte var tillrättalagt.

Tack till Louise Bäckelin Förlag för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

I felt that I was on the fence about this book during the time I read it. Part of me really wanted to find out the truth about Rachel's death, but at the same time, was I having trouble with the narrative. First person's perspective can be tricky. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work as well. In Under the Harrow, do I have to admit that I was struggling with it.

The story itself works because you do not know if the past has anything to do with Rachel's death and that Nora actually behaves strangely as if she has something to hide makes the story more thrilling. But, because Nora is the narrator, it feels like being stuck in her head, and her thoughts are not always so clear. On the other hand, I did not find the flashbacks to the past when Nora and Rachel were young that hard to keep up with.

What I really missed was descriptions. The language felt so meager and it was difficult to grasp the other characters in the book because Nora basically just mentioned them by name with never really giving a good description of them. Which made them easy to forget. The same goes for the landscape, etc.

It's the case, the murder of Rachel who gave life to this book. I really wanted to find out who had murdered her and why. And I'm glad I continued reading the book, despite the narrative problems, as the book was okay with an ending that I felt worked well thanks to not being too obvious.

Thanks to Louise Bäckelin Förlag for the review copy!

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing style took a little while to get used to, but then I was hooked. I kept telling myself one more chapter until I was at the end. Who needs sleep? I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Claudiu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pana la urma s-a asemanat mai mult cu Fata din tren.

Flynn Berry are aceiasi scriitura minimalista a Paulei Hawkins, crezand ca suspansul poate fi realizat astfel. In ce mai bun caz este schitat, dar realizat... Sigur nu.

Un roman mediocru. Ca al Paulei Hawkins.

[Phyllis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why I would pick up a book that claims to be the next "Gone Girl," which I read, but thought was just okay, is beyond me. Mind you, I didn't specifically choose "Under the Harrow" for that reason; it seemed like a nice break from some slightly heavier stuff I brought home from the library. It was only after I got the book home that I noticed the comparison.

Indeed, it is lighter, not only in heft, but also in content. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the length of a book as a sole characteristic, but I applaud the short length in this case because I wasn't stuck with Nora for more than a few hundred pages.

We are supposed to think we have an unreliable narrator. What we have instead is a boring narrator, who goes about stalking people and getting in the way of police investigations, and not in that endearing way we often see on BBC mysteries. The twist, such as it is, wasn't interesting and I wished that some other culprit had been at the heart of this meandering, choppily written book. On to the next!

[Rachel (not currently receiving notifications) Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Weighing in at just over the two-hundred-page mark, Under the Harrow is a memorable debut from American author Flynn Berry set in the rural Oxfordshire village that nurse practitioner Rachel Lawrence resides in. A weekend escape from London for Nora to spend time with her sister Rachel, cooking, dog walking and planning their Christmas break to Cornwall is ripped from within her grasp when she discovers that her sisters has been brutally stabbed in her own home with her German shepherd left swinging eerily from the banisters by his lead. The discovery of her sisters body leaves Nora determined to see justice rightly delivered but all the Berry brings their intense sisterly bond comes under the microscope and examined their relationship. Nora quickly makes a decision to set up residence at the local inn and ensure the police stay on their toes, contributing to her scepticism in the justice system is the memory of a brutal assault which Rachel sustained at seventeen-years-old and that has remained unsolved to this day. Fifteen-years in the past but ever present in both sisters minds. A lack of clues and the failure to find the murder weapon is soon followed by Nora's discovery that Rachel's dog is trained to provide security and that her sister was planning to relocate. Fixating on memories of Rachel telling her that "there was something wrong in this town", Nora inveigles herself with the investigating detectives and manages to unsettle almost everyone of Rachel's neighbours and colleagues with her thinly veiled suspicion. Berry largely steers clear of the standard "how well did I really know my sister" plot that proliferates so much of the psychological thriller genre and the emphasis is placed firmly on uncovering the guilty party.

As it is steadily revealed that Rachel's first assault was followed by an obsessive focus on scouring the newspapers for similar incidents, attending court trials and eliminating potential perpetrators, Nora increasingly comes to thinking that Rachel's attacker as a teen may have returned, coming back to finish the job he began all those years ago after tracking her down. As Nora resumes the obsessive news gathering she thinks nothing of stalking the village plumber who she suspects, hoping to incite him to violence and the police to then hone in on him. As Nora reluctantly revisits the events of the night of the first incident and her lingering guilt that she too shares some responsibility she is hellbent on making amends. Given Rachel had clearly never stopped looking for the man of seventeen-years-ago, Nora takes up the mantle with a driven intensity in an attempt to avenge her dead sister.

The stream of consciousness narration by Nora offers an unparalleled exposure to the fierce sisters bond, characterised by a mixture of love, jealously, hatred and guilt shared by both whose tough upbringing under the roof of an alcoholic and negligent father has pushed them into relying on each other. Against a backdrop of an admittedly overly descriptive narrative, Nora lulls readers into a false sense of security before dropping another bombshell insight into their intense relationship. Despite having to wade through the increasingly laborious descriptions which add little to the picture, the moments of raw anguish catch readers off guard, and I admit to running the whole gambit of emotions and a continually fluctuating picture of the bond between the pair. Some of the most heartbreaking moments were Nora's steady collection of anecdotes and stories that she was so eager to recount to Rachel, all followed by the sinking realisation that the opportunity to do so is long gone. As an increasingly tense finale awaits and a powerful but perhaps a little too abrupt conclusion will ensure readers will await Flynn Berry's future efforts.

I once read a humorous quip which has amused me to this day and seems to sum up Nora/Rachel and their fluctuating love/hate fuelled relationship. As the constantly shifting landscape underneath Nora leaves readers questioning her reliability and truthful recounting, bear in mind the following:

"I ate my sister's stash of candy when she wasn't home. Now I'm helping her look for it."

In summary, Under the Harrow is a brilliantly understated piece of writing that shows much promise and whilst the inevitable hype surrounding this novel left me perhaps expecting more I hugely enjoyed reading this. Berry deserves to be commended for the excellence of her portrayal of life in Britain, from the quaint idiosyncrasies of life in a small village to the anonymity of life in London and the brash working class council estate upbringing of the Lawrence sisters.

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard book to rate, do I give it a 1* OR 2**. I guess a 1.5 is about right. This, in my opinion, is a horribly written book. The sentences are short, choppy and just plain poorly written. Take a look at Chapter Four. The plot was mediocre, she pulls the killer out of the hat and is someone we never even learn about until the last 4 or 5 pages of the book. There is absolutely no character development, the author uses names of people that we barely get introduced to and expects us to either remember who they are or figure out who they are. The narrator is kooky to put it mildly, and her interactions with both the police and the local plumber who she thinks is the killer is downright scary.
We are told that the narrators sister Rachel, who is the murder victim, has confided in the narrator (Nora) that where she lives is a "bad town" OK, and what evidence do we have of that? Nothing that I find out throughout the book and there is no explanation for what is a "bad town." We are also caught up in a past assault of Rachel that happened 15 years ago and how Rachel is still looking for the perpetrator as is Nora. And we never do have any conclusion to that story line. I think we know who is might be but again this is so poorly written that I just cannot get ahold of what happens. The authors will jump back and forth in time from one paragraph to another and it is confusing and confounding. So why did I read this? I just joined a Mystery book club (not sure this is a mystery) and this is the book they are reading for the next meeting. But for me we have bad characters, bad character development, poor plots and storylines that go nowhere, poor writing and characters who are not sympathetic. And pulling the unknown, unseen, unmentioned killer out of the hat at the very end of the book is pretty bad in my opinion. That is why I rounded this down to a 1* and will not read the authors next book.