The buried past
Title : Bonfire
Author : Krysten Ritter
Published : 09/11/2017
Pages : 288
Format : Hardback
Publisher : Hutchinson
It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands. But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town's economic heart, she begins to find strange connections to a decade-old scandal involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her friends―just before Kaycee disappeared for good.
I first heard of this book when it came up on my Twitter feed as I follow the author. The blurb on the back sounded interesting. The use of an environmental lawyer as the lead seemed like a new jumping of point for this kind of novel. I’ve read a few books in he same vein as this one so I was curious as to how it would stack up against some of my favourite novels.
Coming home is a popular topic in mystery novels at the moment. In this case we have Abby going back to her home town. A place she left along time ago. This however is not through her own doing. It's a place she left and had no intention of going back to. But when your job demands you go back what choice do you have. I like the character a lot she bring a complex mix of someone who is confident in her job but also tormented by her past. Through out the book we get to see these seep out of her. As she struggles to deal with a case of contamination from a local company that's slowly killing the towns people and her past coming back to bite her. She has an ability to fight for the truth even when her mind is screaming at her to turn and run. The damage that is inflicted on us as teenagers has a knack of sticking to our souls even when we become adults. Ms Ritter has shown her ability to show this in Abby. With a realism that I think is all to recognisable to a lot of us. While the situation Abby finds her self in through out the case might be very distant to me the bullying she goes thought as a teenager is not.
At 288 pages long this is a book you could probably read in a night. While short in length I never felt it was missing anything. There were plenty of twists and turns to keep my attention from the start. Her writing style is one that I found easy to get on with in this well paced novel. Small towns I think have a lot in common be it in the heart of Indiana or the one I live near in England. The author has done a good job of capturing this claustrophobic and tight knit environments that these place breed. Even more so when the company our hero is there to investigate is the biggest employer in town. While appreciate that not all big companies are big evil faceless organisations. You can see in the news of late that some are and will go to any length to keep them selves where they are. specifically I think in Flint Michigan this maybe where she got the idea but I don't relay know. On the other hand we have Abby's past and present smashing together in a toxic explosion. How some people change and others don't. She shows how when friendship groups fall apart after we leave school people start to truly follow their own paths which some times can lead to horrific outcomes. As the plot unfolds you start to realise just how bad things can get. I was surprised at how dark this story got. The thing people are willing to do to each other will never stop getting to me. Her writing style is one that I found easy to get on with in this well paced novel.
So for my final thoughts. Over all I think for her debut novel she has done a great job. She managed to pull me in and keep me there to the end. Abby is a women who is passionate and has an obsession that by the end I was sharing to. I look forward to the next book be in the continued story of Abby or something different.
Coming home is a popular topic in mystery novels at the moment. In this case we have Abby going back to her home town. A place she left along time ago. This however is not through her own doing. It's a place she left and had no intention of going back to. But when your job demands you go back what choice do you have. I like the character a lot she bring a complex mix of someone who is confident in her job but also tormented by her past. Through out the book we get to see these seep out of her. As she struggles to deal with a case of contamination from a local company that's slowly killing the towns people and her past coming back to bite her. She has an ability to fight for the truth even when her mind is screaming at her to turn and run. The damage that is inflicted on us as teenagers has a knack of sticking to our souls even when we become adults. Ms Ritter has shown her ability to show this in Abby. With a realism that I think is all to recognisable to a lot of us. While the situation Abby finds her self in through out the case might be very distant to me the bullying she goes thought as a teenager is not.
At 288 pages long this is a book you could probably read in a night. While short in length I never felt it was missing anything. There were plenty of twists and turns to keep my attention from the start. Her writing style is one that I found easy to get on with in this well paced novel. Small towns I think have a lot in common be it in the heart of Indiana or the one I live near in England. The author has done a good job of capturing this claustrophobic and tight knit environments that these place breed. Even more so when the company our hero is there to investigate is the biggest employer in town. While appreciate that not all big companies are big evil faceless organisations. You can see in the news of late that some are and will go to any length to keep them selves where they are. specifically I think in Flint Michigan this maybe where she got the idea but I don't relay know. On the other hand we have Abby's past and present smashing together in a toxic explosion. How some people change and others don't. She shows how when friendship groups fall apart after we leave school people start to truly follow their own paths which some times can lead to horrific outcomes. As the plot unfolds you start to realise just how bad things can get. I was surprised at how dark this story got. The thing people are willing to do to each other will never stop getting to me. Her writing style is one that I found easy to get on with in this well paced novel.
So for my final thoughts. Over all I think for her debut novel she has done a great job. She managed to pull me in and keep me there to the end. Abby is a women who is passionate and has an obsession that by the end I was sharing to. I look forward to the next book be in the continued story of Abby or something different.
Comments
Post a Comment