Watching You

Author: Lisa Jewell
Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret.
In the prologue of this crafty conundrum from bestseller Jewell (Then She Was Gone), the author smoothly juggles multiple story lines some dating back 20 years, centering on paterfamilias Tom Fitzwilliam. For some reason, the now middle-aged, nationally honored schoolmaster seems to effortlessly bewitch women and girls alike, among them his slavishly solicitous wife, Nicola, the mother of one of his students, 15-year-old Jenna and her best friend, Bess Ridley, who has a schoolgirl crush on him. While all the people watching Tom facilitate the serpentine plot, they’re also the novel’s weakest link, since their respective obsessions remains baffling and at times border on the tedious.
Narrated from the points of view of several different people, the plot appears to be simply about the daily lives of the people in the town and you almost forget that a body has been found until you get to one of the transcripts of the police interviews interspersed throughout the book, which reminds you of the hidden mystery and you begin to wonder if there is a killer in town and who it might be. When the killer was finally revealed, it was interesting light read.
> Shatabdi Sarker Poushi