Vengeance Is Mine: A Curtain Twitcher’s Book Of Murder By Gay Marris

Books written by authors who are known to you, whose novels, even characters, are familiar, can be comforting and reassuring; you know what you’re going to get and there are rarely any nasty surprises. It can be with some trepidation, therefore, that you open a book by a new author, but I have frequently been very pleasantly surprised and the new discovery has quickly become a firm favourite; Gay Marris is definitely one of those cases. Her book had me at the Prologue! I could hear the narrator’s voice immediately: a sweet, if nosy, elderly spectator, and the casual references to the period, both Victorian and the swinging sixties, set the scene beautifully. I was eager to turn the page and I was not disappointed. The almost conspiratorial tone, spilling the secrets of the residents of Atbara Avenue, is highly satisfying, feeding the natural curiosity in us all.

The style is fluid and fluent and a joy to read, with hints of humour among the dark tales of murder. The disparate cast of characters are delightfully and wickedly drawn. Although each chapter is almost a discrete story, there are threads of continuity woven through.

We are introduced to the different residents of Atbara Avenue and quickly discover that all is not as it first appears. Sweet old ladies, like Muriel Dollimore, have venomous tongues, and the apparently dutiful daughter is full of seething resentment. And so it begins; each twist becomes obvious only when it occurs – the end of each chapter is very important, and I don’t just mean because of the deaths which occur.

There’s Colin Peabody, the twelve year old boy with the ‘bone china complexion’ and an alter ego who has been with him since the dreadful accident which confined him to a wheelchair. Rise, Colin, and walk!

For a debut novel, this is a remarkable achievement...

And then there’s Elspeth Shepherd, so often in church she seems to live there…but appearances are not, in this case, deceptive. Elspeth, with her menagerie, makes an unreliable tenant as poor Gabriel is about to find out. And so it goes on as the reader is introduced to character after character, none of whom is exactly what they appear. Each chapter is the tale of a macabre murder with a flavour, perhaps, of Roald Dahl sprinkled in. You really wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, feel safe in the leafy, suburban neighbourhood of Atbara Avenue, where death seems like the natural solution to all altercations!

Reginald and Dickie are twins who were the light of their parents’ lives but ‘detest each other’; their lives are defined by ‘bitter rivalry’, evident in their shared home and played out in the church arts and crafts competition. Trixie Cartwright, their neighbour, is a woman of independent means and voluminous curves which envelop her ‘skeletal scaffold’; she is ‘everso’ pleased with life except for the unexpected departure of Reginald on his ‘world tour’. Once again, though, nothing is as it first appears as she embroils Dickie in an intrigue he simply doesn’t see, and her hidden talents prove useful in providing her with the companion she seeks. At least so it would appear – if things were always as they appeared to the casual observer.

The subtle details of the pink rubber shower attachment for the taps and the red geraniums on the windowsill, are a nice touch.

Bobbo Watts is not actually a resident of Atbara Avenue but his parents are and he is a frequent visitor to number 47; likewise, Anthony Jobbins, the bully, loved by the girls – and even more by himself. The two were once rivals in love even though one of them didn’t realise it and their fates are ultimately tied together. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

We witness the events of Atbara Avenue through the eyes of Deirdre O’Reilly; endlessly doing good works, she is the wife of the vicar and gains access wherever she goes. Her own sad secret is revealed only towards the end. The final chapter brings us back to the start as Vernon (or Mickey or Matty or St John or Regis – whichever name he has chosen for that week) focusses his attentions on Muriel who, by the way, was once a singer with the stage name of Dolores. The subtle details of the pink rubber shower attachment for the taps and the red geraniums on the windowsill, are a nice touch. Ultimately, he is hoisted by his own petard but so too is Muriel, although Deirdre remains sweetly ignorant of all that is going on around her.

The descriptions of Atbara Avenue, its houses and shops, the church and the park, are detailed and absorbing. It is easy to feel familiar with the colourful landscape. For a debut novel, this is a remarkable achievement and, if you haven’t already guessed, well worth a read.


A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder is published by Bedford Square Publishers Ltd