"The Wicked Girls," which is Alex Marwood's debut novel, would make a fabulous movie, if filmed and shot properly. Not to mention its cast.
When I saw the title, the book intrigued me, but when I read what it involved--children murdering a child, hidden identities, and a serial killer in a British seaside town--all my buttons were pressed, and I had to read it. I could not stop.
Now, for those who have not read it, but plan to, I am giving my warning--stop here. Because I plan to discuss details at length, from here on.
There is a drop of "Heavenly Creatures" to this tale, and I have no doubt that Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were influential to the characters of Jade Walker and Annabel Oldacre. But what I think Miss Marwood is writing is a fictionalized, and feminized, version of the James Bulger murder case, contrasting the children's pasts, with their adult figures' present.
Marwood has done her work, for a number of familiar names are referenced--Mary Bell, Myra Hindley, Rose West, and of course, Robert Thompson and Jon Vebnables. The stand in for James Bulger is Chloe Francis, a four-year-old girl, and while her killing is not as cut and dried as James Bulger's was, I will have things to say about who and how people should have been charged in this case.
As one reviewer says, things happen almost banally. On the morning of July 17, 1986, Jade Walker, and Annabel Oldacre, meet. Jade is from the White Trash section of the village, and that is how her entire family is regarded--not unlike the Ewells in "To Kill A Mockingbird." Annabel's mother Lucinda, is married to a man named Michael, a wealthy financier, who provides mother and daughter with the kind of luxury Jade can't imagine, but is given a glimpse of, that day.
Things might not have gone down the way they did, had they not run into one of Jade's older brothers, Darren, who is trying to make it with Deborah Francis, but is having a difficult time, as Deborah has her sister, Chloe, age 4, with her. Eventually, the girls are talked into taking care of Chloe, so Deborah and Darren can make out. But Chloe, being only 4, becomes a drag on the girls, and while trying to cool her off by the stream, Annabel, the more evil of the two, pushes Chloe over a fence, knocking her to the ground, nearly killing her. The deed is finished by both girls placing Chloe in the stream, thinking she will be revived, only she drowns. By evening, the cops come, the girls are taken away, Annabel's mother abandons her for propriety sake, and the girls, like Thompson and Venables, are left on their own, imprisoned, and issued new identities when released.
Jade Walker is now Kristy Lindsay, in 2011, a journalist. Annabel Oldacre is now Amber Gordon, who manages cleaners at a carnival by the sea, called Funland. The drama of the book will be what will happen--a series of present day murders force the girls to reconnect, which their parole does not allow--as it did not in the cases of Thompson and Venables, and Parker and Hulme--if their secret is found out. The insertion of the serial killer, a device to get them back together, is almost unnecessary, except to reveal something important about Annabel/Amber. Let me say, there was a crucial scene, before anyone was charged, where I figured out who the serial killer was, and I was right. But I kept waiting for the big twist ending, that Laura Lippman's cover blurb promised, and I was sorely disappointed--did she mean that Annabel, as a child, was sexually abused by her stepfather, Michael? Well, hello; big deal; that is Standard Operating Procedure for the manufacturing of a serial killer, psychopath or sociopath. It also explains why Annabel lived with whom she did.
Of course, the childhood flashback sequences are most fascinating. I would have wanted more on them. But what disappointed me the most was that Marwood lets Kristy/Jade get away, whereas Amber has to face both her past and her present. Was this some kind of class vengeance? The wealthy girl suffers, but the White Trash one goes free? Why? Because, I don't care what you say, both girls were as evil as children could be. They should never have been released, because psychopathic or sociopathic children do not change; they only get worse. That Venables and Thompson are at large is an effrontery to society, and look at the trouble Venables has gotten into, since. As for Thompson, his time is coming; sooner or later, he will do something.
I have no idea why Marwood spares Jade/Kristy, but it was the one decision I was not happy with. But this did not keep me from enjoying the book--especially the nightmarish sequence in the Chamber of Horrors, where the girls see a spooked up replica of their macabre, childhood selves, which, as far as I am concerned, have not been buried by age.
Also, Deborah Francis and Darren Walker should have been charged with child endangerment, for entrusting Chloe to the Wicked Girls. I have no idea why the adult Deborah is spared, either.
Children being murdered offend me. Children being murdered by women make me hate these women all the more. No justice or mercy for them. Hell, or the slag heap!
The reader will think about Jade Walker and Anabel Oldacre for days after finishing Marwood's book. And I know the next time I see a young child with a group of older children, and get an uncomfortable feeling, I will intervene!
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