Snap by Belinda Bauer

The first chapter of Belinda Bauer's 'Snap' presents a terrifying premise based on the unsolved murder of Marie Wilks. On a hot summer day in 1998, eleven-year-old Jack Bright is left in a broken-down car by the side of a highway with his two younger sisters, Joy and Merry, while their pregnant mother, Eileen, seeks assistance. She never returns, and her body is discovered stabbed to death.

Three years later, after being abandoned by their father, who is unable to cope, Jack resorts to burgling houses in order to provide for his sisters while avoiding detection by social services. On the other side of town, Catherine While, a young pregnant woman, discovers a knife next to her bed with a note that reads "I could have killed you," but she chooses not to tell her husband or report the break-in to the police. Elsewhere, DS Reynolds, who follows the rules, and DCI Marvel, who takes a slightly more unconventional approach to detective work, are investigating multiple burglaries as well as the identity of Eileen's killer, who has yet to be caught, and are in a race against time to solve both mysteries.

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Jack and his siblings are emotionally traumatized, and the impact of Eileen's murder on the family left behind is sensitively written. Bauer, like her fourth novel Rubbernecker, juggles three distinct plot strands before revealing how they are all linked. However, I believe this was accomplished more successfully in 'Rubbernecker,' whereas in 'Snap,' the identity of the killer is revealed fairly quickly, with no real red herrings in the way.

'Snap' has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but I doubt it will make it to the shortlist. Looking beyond yet another debate about the place of genre fiction on a literary award longlist, I believe the first half of 'Snap' is superior to the second - the intrigue is well set up but the plot relied on too many unlikely coincidences to tie all the different strands together. In crime fiction, the line between originality and credibility can be difficult to walk, and Bauer occasionally crosses it too far. Although I haven't read any of the other longlisted books, I doubt Bauer's spare prose style would compare favorably to the latest novels of Sally Rooney or Michael Ondaatje if their previous work is any evidence.











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