Stevie‘s review of The French Girl by Lexie Elliott
Women’s Crime Fiction published by Berkley 20 Feb 18
There’s a great public fascination with unsolved mysteries, which generally peaks whenever a new piece of evidence is uncovered, particularly if that evidence changes the investigation from one involving a missing person to a murder enquiry. While such news provokes excitement in uninvolved spectators, it can create far more ravaging emotions in those involved in the original case, no matter how innocent they might be. Any such crime has a victim and a perpetrator, and when both are part of the same social group, the repercussions are bound to affect all of their friends and families. So it is for Kate Channing and her erstwhile university friends ten years after they last went on holiday together – and ten years after the girl holidaying next door disappeared.
Despite the less than auspicious ending to the holiday, as well as the mysterious departure of Severine, the French girl of the novel’s title, Kate and her friends fell out over more personal matters as well – the friends have stayed in contact to a greater or lesser extent. The friend whose parents’ holiday home provided accommodation for the group is now deceased, but the others all find themselves back in London a decade on from their university graduation: just in time for the announcement that French police are investigating the discovery of a body believed to be that of Severine.
Kate, already under a great deal of stress due to starting up a new business, finds herself under pressure to reveal long-concealed secrets about why the group argued on the last day of their holiday. She imagines that Severine is following her to meetings with friends and business associates, and worries that one of her friends from the holiday is hiding a far greater secret: the details of how Severine died and why her death was concealed so completely.
I warmed to Kate quite easily; she’s a bit of an outsider, and was mainly part of the holiday group by virtue of her socially superior boyfriend at the time. Of the others, Kate’s two closest friends are also easy to like, while her ex-boyfriend, along with the other woman out of the group, are possibly the two I most wanted to see get their comeuppance. Kate’s a fighter. Even as it becomes apparent that certain of her former friends will do anything to prevent her revealing her secrets, she still does everything in her power to find justice for Severine and protect those who have stood by her. She also has integrity, refusing to transfer blame for past events onto the one member of the group unable to defend himself against false accusations – though also beyond the reach of the law – even if that means other group members may have to face the consequences of their youthful indiscretions.
An excellent first novel, and I’m very excited about what this author might have in store for us in the future.
Grade: A
Summary:
We all have our secrets…
They were six university students from Oxford–friends and sometimes more than friends–spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway…until they met Severine, the girl next door.
For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group’s loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can’t forgive. And there are some people you can’t forget…like Severine, who was never seen again.
Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine’s body is found in the well behind the farmhouse. Questioned along with her friends, Kate stands to lose everything she’s worked so hard to achieve as suspicion mounts around her. Desperate to resolve her own shifting memories and fearful she will be forever bound to the woman whose presence still haunts her, Kate finds herself buried under layers of deception with no one to set her free…
Read an excerpt.
