Review of The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell, by Gail Aldwin, pub. Bloodhound Books 2023

In 2014, Stephanie Brett, reporter on a local West Country newspaper, is unexpectedly made redundant, which leads her to do two things: take in a friend as lodger to make ends meet and revisit an old story, a young girl’s disappearance in 1979 which was never solved. Stephanie, then a trainee, had made mistakes in her reporting of the case; also the missing girl and her older sister had been acquaintances of hers at school, so the case still nags at her mind. She decides to take it up again and her old boss suggests she make a podcast for local radio. Initially she jibs at the thought of yet more change in her life – “stuck in the rhythms and routines of the newspaper, she didn’t want a change” but decides to go along with it for want of anything better.

From here on, the story develops along two lines and in two separate times, Stephanie’s enquiries and interviews for the podcast, narrated in close-third person, and the thoughts of Carolyn Russell, the disappeared girl, in the months before she went missing. This strand is told in first person by Carolyn herself, an interesting narrative choice given that the reason her disappearance was never solved was that nobody knew what was really going on in her head, or indeed her life, at the time. The reader, therefore, for most of the time knows more than Stephanie does. At one point, in fact, one of Stephanie’s interviewees tells what we already know must be a lie, but Stephanie has no means of knowing it.

We also sometimes know more than Carolyn does, for her narrative is that of a sixteen-year-old girl who is apt to interpret things amiss, particularly when she deludes herself that her maths teacher is in love with her. The way a teenage girl thinks and talks is very convincingly mirrored in the writing – “A group of girls had gone nearer to the fence but we didn’t want to get close. They were the sort who knotted their shirt ends into a bra top and showed off their flat stomachs while they sunbathed.” Nowhere is this thought process better handled than in Carolyn’s fantasy about the unfortunate Mr Simmons:

“I stood there watching him miraculously correct the blinds and they slung into place. As he adjusted the strips to shade the room, I knew I had to act quickly or miss my chance.

‘I’ll get my things.’ Dropping down to pick up my bag, I rose again and bumped his arm. He acted startled and pulled away. I knew it was a little joke between us.”

If much of Carolyn’s life is a secret from others (including the reader, for we shall find by the end that we knew less about her than we thought, or rather, we dismissed some clues that did not seem to fit the image we were forming of her), Stephanie’s is the reverse. I did occasionally wonder if we were being told more of the minutiae of her life than we needed to know – “Stephanie allowed plenty of time to arrive at the meeting with Janine. Trains ran twice an hour and she knew Warren town centre was a fair walk from the station. With twenty minutes to spare, Stephanie took a detour around the streets. When she reached the church, she sat on a bench and appraised the squat grey building. The origins were Norman, but the addition of a porch and a tower made it appear quirky.” None of this actually turns out to be relevant, and so much scene-setting can slow the pace down. There is, however, admittedly a case to be made for stressing the contrast between Stephanie and Carolyn; Stephanie herself sometimes sees parallels between them but in most ways they couldn’t be less alike, and Carolyn would not notice the church or recall the first thing about it.

The other minor quibble I have is with a stylistic tic whereby sentences often start with a participial phrase – in this paragraph four out of eight sentences do so:

“Sitting at my desk, I fanned the index cards from Sim and admired the lovely pastel colours. I tossed the yellow ones aside, needing no reminder of Mr Canary. Closing my eyelids, I blocked out the image of him leering towards me. Not for a moment had I imagined he’d try something on. Thank God I’d escaped in time. Squeezing my eyes tighter, I extinguished the memory and my heart settled to a regular beat. It was a relief he hadn’t returned to the shop since. He was an utter waste of space compared to my one true love. Choosing a red biro from the pot, I gripped the end and prepared to write.”

While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this device, it becomes predictable and occasionally the opening phrase, separated from its governing noun, dangles comically: “Formerly a tobacconist shop, Beth was the talented baker who put the café at the top of TripAdvisor reviews.”

Since the plot hangs on a mystery, it would be wrong to reveal too many details. Enough to say that it’s definitely a page-turner, not just because we want to know what happened to Carolyn but because we are also invested in Stephanie and whether she will succeed in turning her life around via the podcast. Interestingly enough, this turns out to depend less on whether she can solve the mystery than on whether she can put it, and other aspects of her life, behind her. The characters are well drawn, particularly Beth, the lodger, Doug, Stephanie’s ex-boss and Mrs Russell, Carolyn’s mother. The central investigation is always gripping and its final result a refreshing variant on the usual “missing girl” plot.