Emma Christie

Former newspaper journalist Emma Christie’s second novel, Find Her First, could be called a crime thriller, which it is, or a murder mystery, which it also is. Trying to figure out what is really going on in a sea of red herrings is a big part of the enormous pleasure in reading this book.
The story takes place in Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside, where Andy Campbell and his wife Stef are dedicated hikers. Scotland’s well-described forests and cliffs and vistas are an essential backdrop to their story.
The book opens with Andy, apparently on trial for murder, awaiting the verdict. He’s an experienced paramedic, but has he taken a life? Though the contours of his crime are not yet defined, his sadness that events reached this point is clear.
You’re left waiting for the court’s judgment, which won’t come for many pages. Instead, the narrative goes back six months to the previous summer. Chapters taking Andy’s point of view alternate with those written by Betty Stevenson, the housecleaner for Andy and his wife Stef, also a paramedic, but on mandatory leave.
Fate and whether it’s possible to escape it or to take it into your own hands is a major theme of the book. Betty is fond of Stef and desperately eager for closeness with someone. She believes in luck—the luck of a shiny penny found on the street—and in fate. Being a friend to Stef, she thinks, is her fate. And now, it seems, Stef is missing.
Betty and Andy both had traumatic childhoods that shaped their current lives, with Andy determined to save people and Betty, in her own way, trying to recapture the innocence of those much younger days. A few chapters are in Stef’s point of view from a year before the trial. All these time shifts can be a mite confusing, but in the end make sense.
All three of the main characters have regrets. Fractured family relationships. A romantic indiscretion. Lies they’ve told. A series of miscarriages. Author Christie spins out a complicated, entangling web and keeps you guessing about where its strands will lead. Are their current challenges related to the past, the present, or the future?
She writes with a close-in psychological perspective, and you come to have a rather deep understanding of the principal characters. You know why they act as they do, even when another course might be objectively better. In a sense, it’s an object lesson in the perils of partial information. You have only partial information too, and not until the end do you learn what the story is really about. An excellent read.… (plus d'informations)

Andy Campbell and his wife, Stef, are paramedics. Or Stef was until she went missing. Where is she? Matters are complicated when Stef's ID card is found in the home of a serial criminal. Andy has to find her.

Having read Emma Christie's first novel, The Silent Daughter, I know she is adept at creating a twisty storyline with the unexpected popping up at every turn. Whilst I guessed some of what happened in Find Her First, she still managed to throw a few curveballs at me. The characters are really well-drawn and three-dimensional. I felt like I knew them and cared about them, whilst wondering what they were hiding.

A return to the Portobello setting was welcome. Christie describes it beautifully as a backdrop to Andy's search, to his home life with Stef and to life as a paramedic. I liked the insight into the job and the way it can affect a person.

I enjoyed Find Her First. It's a clever story which built up pace from the scene-setting beginnings through to the reveals at the end. Emma Christie is an excellent writer, combining the emotional pull of love and life with the exciting intrigue of a psychological thriller. I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.… (plus d'informations)

This is a debut? Are you sure? Wow!

The tagline for The Silent Daughter is "How many secrets can one family keep?". How many indeed. The Morrison family seem to have more than most. The book starts with Chris Morrison finding out his wife, Maria, is in a coma after a fall whilst running. But Maria is such a competent runner. Would she have just fallen? Chris makes contact easily with their son, Mikey, but struggles to get hold of their daughter, Ruth. It's not unusual for Ruth to go off-grid but it is usually possible to find a way to communicate with her. Where is she? Does her disappearance have anything to do with Maria's situation?

I can't say anything more about the plot but I will say that it's executed brilliantly. From page 1 this is a book that had me gripped by the turns the story took. Chris starts to try and piece everything together and the author led me down many different routes to the conclusion, via dead ends, cul-de-sacs and roundabouts galore! I was thoroughly discombobulated. I just didn't see any of it coming and the denouement when it came was so totally unexpected. Every time I thought I had it cracked something else was thrown at me.

Emma Christie has written something quite brilliant here and totally fresh. It's such a cleverly constructed novel, focusing on family and what it means. The Edinburgh setting plays a big part in the story and the typical Scottish weather is very atmospheric. It really felt like it added to Chris's torment as he paced the streets looking for answers.

In case you hadn't guessed, I thought this was a brilliant read. I was hooked from start to finish. I'm really excited to see what this debut author does next.… (plus d'informations)