“Mid way in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and found myself alone in a dark wood
What wood that was! I never saw so drear! So rank, so dark, so arduous a wilderness, its very memory gave shape to fear.” (Inferno, Dante Alighieri)

I Shot the Devil is Ruth McIvers debut, a gritty novel about the secrets surrounding a decades old murder, missing children, and police corruption.

When true crime journalist, Erin Sloane is assigned a feature article on The Southport Three, she’s reluctant to confess her own connection to the 1994 thrill kill case. Not only was her father a detective with Nassau County where the murder occurred, but both the victims, and the assailants, were her friends.

Hardly the picture of stability, with a childhood marked by loss and neglect, and a long-standing pill and alcohol habit, it’s difficult to judge Erin’s reliability as narrator. Delving into the past proves to be both emotionally and physically threatening for her as she renews contact with her abusive ex-boyfriend, one of the Southport Three, and slowly pieces together what really happened the night two teenagers died. Erin knows there is no truth to the claims of satanic influence, but it proves to be more complicated too than either revenge or a drug fuelled thrill. Erin uncovers corruption that implicates her father, now dying with Alzheimer’s, along with other police officers, and a web of conspiracy.

The novel is atmospheric, the sense of threat and tension is established early and builds effectively. There are some elements of the narrative that I thought didn’t quite work though, for example I thought the pacing was a little uneven, and there are some foreshortened threads.

I Shot the Devil is an edgy, dark thriller and McIvers is an author with definite potential. ( )