by Marie Tierney ★★★☆☆
Ava Bonney, 14 years old and living in Birmingham, England in 1981, knows she's different. For starters, she has a fascination with dead animals, and she has a secret hobby in which she collects roadkill, studies its decomposition, and records her findings in her "Red Book of observations". Her quirkiness leaves her on the outside of most social situations, and her trusted circle of companions does not extend much past her younger sister Veronica and her best friend John.
In the wee hours one morning, Ava sneaks out to make her rounds among her "roadkill bodyfarm". During her early morning romp, she comes across something that is distinctly not part of her collection: Mickey Grant, a classmate, but also a bully and a thief, lies dead at her feet. Disguising her voice, she calls the crime in to the police from a pay phone.
The investigation into Mickey's death begins, and the list of potential suspects is lengthy, from those he tussled with or stole from, to the neighborhood "nonce" (British slang for a pedophile), and even the local ice cream truck driver, who despite his job strangely harbors an open hatred for children. The police are struggling with leads, but Ava has an intuition for these things, and her suggestions—both those she volunteers directly to the detectives and those she continues to call in anonymously—start to help the police make progress.
There was a moment during the earlier stages of Deadly Animals where I thought it might be on track for a full 5 stars, and there were a lot of solid components to the book. But this is Tierney's first novel, and some of that inexperience began to show. The story develops, but by the halfway point in the novel the identity of the killer seemed obvious to me. Tierney's breadcrumb clues are far from subtle, and I suspect any discerning reader of mysteries would like solve this one far more swiftly than the characters. The book was, quite simply, too heavily foreshadowed, whether it was the blue pencil "sharpened at both ends" (why??) that Ava always carries with her (how might that ever come into play?), or the series of clues that really point to one obvious perpetrator.
While that was my biggest gripe, it was one of the only ones. Ava was strange, and perhaps unbelievably well-versed in things like "clinical lycanthropy"—a rare psychiatric condition where a person believes they have transformed into an animal—but she was still a compelling protagonist. Tierney dabbles with a hint of character flirtation amidst all of the killing, be it Ava with one of the older boys who seems to fancy her, Detective Sergeant Delahaye with the medical examiner, or John dealing with his burgeoning feelings for Ava. Those scenes were mostly well put together, and it seems Tierney has a natural gift for authentically rendering small sparks of potential love.
There was much to like in Deadly Animals, and I think Tierney has plenty of promise as an author. This one just suffered a bit from some first-book faults that I suspect will be ironed out in future novels. Enjoyable but flawed.
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