Skeletons in the Closet

MY SISTER’S BONES by NUALA ELLWOOD

My Sister’s Bones is a psychological suspense mystery with several unexpected twists that result in a completely different change of tack for the story and allow you to view the story in a completely different light. The main narrator, Kate Rafter – whose very name suggests someone desperately struggling through lethally dangerous waters – is another unreliable narrator – in my view, the best kind, as they are usually much more fun.

Kate has been mentally damaged by her previous experiences as a successful war correspondent reporting from war-torn regions in countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, giving the story a strong contemporary feel. She appears to be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and experiences hallucinations that seem to relate to her own personal problems and awful flashbacks as part of her precarious mental condition, made worse by the loss of her mother, which is the reason she returns home from her latest assignment – to bury her mother and catch up with her estranged and equally troubled sister, Sally. So, she also has grief (and a few other issues I won’t go into here so I don’t ruin it) to contend with as well as PTSD.

All of which begs the question: is what Kate experiences real or just a manifestation of her emotional and mental difficulties caused by unbearable amounts of stress? Though a little spiky and cold to begin with, you begin to warm to Kate as she goes through one terrible difficulty after another while always trying to do what she sees as the right thing.

Kate is an educated, sophisticated and complicated character, while her sister is more down to earth, if not an underachiever, with problems of her own, not least in her marriage. The Rafter sisters also have a shared history of tragedy and domestic violence while growing up, as well as very different views on what happened in their troubled childhood home.

I personally love this kind of psychological suspense that’s tinged with madness and this is a well-written example of the genre with several great twists along the way. The ever-present suspense is expertly ramped up as the story progresses and the climax adds another exciting and difficult to predict twist (for me, at least!) but is also not so far-fetched as to be completely unbelievable.

This is an intelligent, daring, hard-edged and well-constructed story: tough and dark, but never too disturbing that you don’t want to read on and see if Kate’s experiences are real or the result of her damaged and grieving mind. If you enjoy the kind of twisty Hitchcockian story where the main character is slightly unbalanced and sees and hears disturbing things and no one else believes them (think Rear Window crossed with Vertigo) then this is the book for you. As a debut novel, it’s even more impressive with a supremely confident and sophisticated voice and if it wasn’t for a few small clichés and superfluous elements, it would have easily scored maximum marks. But, as it is, it’s still a brilliant read.

4.5/5 STARS