The Shining Girls
Lauren Beukes
Harper Collins 2013
Kirby
Mazrachi is just a normal little girl doing what girls do. A tea party out in
the field, no-one around but her and her toys, happy in the shade of a tree
with a breeze blowing through her hair. Until he appears. Kirby is a smart
girl, she knows not to talk to strangers, but it's almost like he knows her. He
doesn't try to hurt her, doesn't try to take her anywhere, he just talks. He
says some strange things but nothing so strange as when he leaves, giving her a
plastic orange pony as a parting gift: "I'll see you when you're all
grown up. Look out for me, OK, sweetheart?" He's true to his word.
Flash forward ... years. Kirby stumbles out of the
cover of a clump of trees by a deserted patch of river. Barely alive, bleeding
from multiple stab wounds and carrying her dead dog in her arms she is truly at
death's door, saved only by a terrified fisherman who happened to be nearby.
Kirby is the lucky one, she pull through despite her horrific injuries, her
assailant never seen nor heard of again. Or is he? For Kirby is just one among
many, victims of a serial killer whose methods are so strange and subtle as to
be virtually undetectable to all save this one survivor.
The
Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes is a detective
thriller with a truly novel twist in the form of a time travelling murderer,
Harper. On the run from a gambling session gone bad in early Twentieth-Century
Chicago, Harper finds himself pursued by an angry vigilante mob of
shanty-dwellers. A man of few morals he has no qualms about killing to keep his
location secret but he has no idea what awaits him when he murders a young
woman for her coat. The key in its pocket leads him to an abandoned house in
the middle of Chicago's slums, sumptuously decorated and containing a dead body
and a seeming shrine to a number of girls replete with scrawled notes and
mementos. The house speaks to him, urging him on to unspeakable acts, and on
leaving he finds himself transported to the future. He knows what he must do,
he must track down and savagely murder the girls on the list. They are
separated by decades but linked by two common threads; they all live in the
Chicago area, and they are all 'shining girls', possessed of some inner spark
giving the potential to achieve great things in their lives. Harper has other
plans for them.
So
the story goes, with Harper flitting in and out of time, visiting his targets
as children and then returning for the execution years later. Some have indeed
accomplished much, others are floundering, but they all eventually succumb to his
blade in vicious attacks. All except Kirby, the heroine of The Shining Girls
and a suitably no-nonsense, kick-ass protagonist. Following her ordeal and all
but abandoned by her fading hippie mother, Kirby is as solid as they come,
dedicating her life to solving the mystery of her attack. To this end she
bullies her way into a job in a Chicago newspaper, using her new connections
and sheer willpower to access newspaper archives, police reports, personal
contacts and anything else which will inch her closer to the man who nearly
ended her life.
The
Shining Girls is a surprisingly brutal read. Despite
knowing the basic plot synopsis I was expecting something less in-your-face but
I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of attitude pouring from the pages. While
there is a great deal of violence it is never gratuitous, serving to drive home
just what Harper is stealing from the world and also lending some colour to his
continuing descent into insanity. The more gruesome aspects are balanced out by
Kirby's relationship with her mentor at the newspaper and by the loving detail
which is put into the descriptions of Chicago through the ages, demonstrating a
remarkable familiarity for a South African author.
I'll
be honest though, I'm a sci-fi fan at heart so it was the time travel mechanics
which grabbed me. The idea of the house seemingly taking control of its
occupants (not only Harper...) and leading them into these acts spread across
time was original and very well implemented. Not once did Beukes feel the need
to delve into the whys and wherefores of what was happening, it's simply left
to the reader to soak up and mull over - which I did at length. On the way she
raised some interesting questions and there is a constant battle, escalating
towards the book's climax, over whether the agents are acting of their own free
will and altering destinies or whether this path was set in stone for them all
along. It's a question left unresolved and seems all the more satisfying for
it.
All
in all The Shining Girls has a lot to recommend it to a wide readership.
The core of the story is essentially a traditional serial killer tale with
enough fresh elements to appeal to the hardened thriller crowd. Kirby is a
strong and vibrant heroine who will readily appeal to the more rebellious
female readers out there, not to mention the guys. And as mentioned there is a
wonderful plot device in the twisted magic house, edging the book into
sci-fi/fantasy territory as well as allowing the readers to explore life in a
number of modern eras. Definitely a book to put on your summer reading list.
This review was brought to you by Cannonball Jones. The Shining Girls available from bookish places now.
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