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inverarityHer high school boyfriend became a serial killer, but maybe he didn't do it?
Thomas & Mercer, 2025, 314 pages
The title (which I interpret to be a play on words on the "Final Girl" trope) is the cleverest thing about this book, which is otherwise a serviceable but predictable thriller about a woman being forced to revisit the events of her youth when her boyfriend turned into a serial killer.
Karen Walker was a lower-class British girl living with a single mum. Her best friend, Aaron, "the weird Goth kid," is an artistic young man whose relationship with her is never quite defined (it's a key point of the story that through much of the book she denies ever having been his girlfriend, even though she was described that way afterwards). She has a female best friend named Jen who's more of a frenemy; Jen's widowed father is wealthy, and dating Karen's mother. Awkward! Jen has an older, abusive boyfriend named Gareth who beats her up a few times (Jen says he's "very passionate").
Then Jen turns up dead. Karen believes Gareth did it, and what she tells the police leads to Gareth being arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
Ten years later, seven more women have died, killed by a serial killer called "The Bagman," because he strangles his victims with a bag over their head. The Bagman turns out to be Karen's old not-boyfriend, Aaron. When Karen recants some of her earlier statements, Gareth is released from prison. Karen writes a book about her experience. She's now a writer living in New York, when another woman disappears, leaving behind clues suggesting the Bagman did it. Except the Bagman, Karen's ex-bestie, is still in prison. Karen returns to England to help the police and confront her past.
So this mystery does something I kind of dislike, which is to hide information from the reader that the narrator knows all along. The First Girl is written from Karen's first person POV, and we know from the beginning that there are holes in Karen's story and things she's withheld, but we don't get the whole truth until she tells all in the climax. Obviously there are misdirections and red herrings but I found the story fairly predictable. There were a few points that stretched credibility for me. Of course we know she's going to go to prison and have a confrontation with Aaron, and of course we know the (alleged) killer is going to come for her.
I tend to like British crime thrillers, I guess because Britain feels similar to America yet it's just different enough (especially the sharper class distinctions) to feel a bit foreign. But Claire McGowan is no Alex Marwood or Robert Galbraith; the writing was fine and the plot was okay if a bit contrived, but overall it was... adequate, not really good enough for me to add Claire McGowan to my reading list.
My complete list of book reviews.
Thomas & Mercer, 2025, 314 pages
She believed her serial-killer ex was innocent, but now history is repeating itself. What does she really remember?
Writer Karen Walker knows more than most about murderers. Her first love went on to become The Bagman, a notorious serial killer now locked away for life in a maximum-security prison.
Karen has spent her life running from the weight of having loved him, defended him and, ultimately, leading the police to his door. But now, ten years later, just as she’s about to publish her account of his crimes, a young woman is abducted in horribly familiar circumstances.
It can’t be The Bagman…can it? He’s safely behind bars, thanks to her. But she has to know for sure.
Returning to the hometown she thought she’d left for good, Karen is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man she’s never escaped. If there’s any chance of saving the kidnapped girl, she’ll have to face up to what really happened back then, once and for all…
The title (which I interpret to be a play on words on the "Final Girl" trope) is the cleverest thing about this book, which is otherwise a serviceable but predictable thriller about a woman being forced to revisit the events of her youth when her boyfriend turned into a serial killer.
Karen Walker was a lower-class British girl living with a single mum. Her best friend, Aaron, "the weird Goth kid," is an artistic young man whose relationship with her is never quite defined (it's a key point of the story that through much of the book she denies ever having been his girlfriend, even though she was described that way afterwards). She has a female best friend named Jen who's more of a frenemy; Jen's widowed father is wealthy, and dating Karen's mother. Awkward! Jen has an older, abusive boyfriend named Gareth who beats her up a few times (Jen says he's "very passionate").
Then Jen turns up dead. Karen believes Gareth did it, and what she tells the police leads to Gareth being arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
Ten years later, seven more women have died, killed by a serial killer called "The Bagman," because he strangles his victims with a bag over their head. The Bagman turns out to be Karen's old not-boyfriend, Aaron. When Karen recants some of her earlier statements, Gareth is released from prison. Karen writes a book about her experience. She's now a writer living in New York, when another woman disappears, leaving behind clues suggesting the Bagman did it. Except the Bagman, Karen's ex-bestie, is still in prison. Karen returns to England to help the police and confront her past.
So this mystery does something I kind of dislike, which is to hide information from the reader that the narrator knows all along. The First Girl is written from Karen's first person POV, and we know from the beginning that there are holes in Karen's story and things she's withheld, but we don't get the whole truth until she tells all in the climax. Obviously there are misdirections and red herrings but I found the story fairly predictable. There were a few points that stretched credibility for me. Of course we know she's going to go to prison and have a confrontation with Aaron, and of course we know the (alleged) killer is going to come for her.
I tend to like British crime thrillers, I guess because Britain feels similar to America yet it's just different enough (especially the sharper class distinctions) to feel a bit foreign. But Claire McGowan is no Alex Marwood or Robert Galbraith; the writing was fine and the plot was okay if a bit contrived, but overall it was... adequate, not really good enough for me to add Claire McGowan to my reading list.
My complete list of book reviews.
