Speak of the Devil

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This detective is sharp and clever and works closely with the women as she watches for any slip they may make to point to the truth. She is horrified by the things which are coming to light regarding the deceased man but the search for the killer is slow. The women are a heady mixture with various sexual proclivities which err on the side of fun, and all are horrified when Spellman’s real personality is exposed. “Unusual slant” This book was not what I expected, but that’s okay because I still enjoyed it. The first chapter of this story starts off with seven women sitting around a severed head. I thought this was going to be a gory, gross book- but it didn’t turn out to be anything like that at all. Yes, a head without a body is definitely stomach turning, but what we try to find out through this story is which woman would behead that of Jamie Spellman (the deceased)?

Jamie (the murder victim) is an absolute monster with no redeeming qualities at all. This makes it exceptionally easy to cheer for the woman who killed him, even when we don’t yet know who it is. I loved how Wilding adds accents and slang to the conversations, bringing the Scottish brogues out in the supporting characters without making the language hard to understand. A group of some of the women he has humiliated arrange a meeting to discuss how they could put a stop to his activities. They meet in the shabby upstairs room of a local pub and, on entry, are faced with the horror of the decapitated head of Jamie on the floor. They know the killer is likely to be one of them, as they are all his victims, so they begin the search, alongside Detective Inspector Nova Stokoe.A propulsive and complexly layered story...Fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware won’t want to miss this one." – Nora Murphy, author of The Favor A dark and twisted commentary on the treatment of women that asks the question, are women truly to blame when they take charge of abusive situations after the world refuses to listen to them? This captivating debut literary thriller entwines the searing stories of several women who suffered at the hands of the same man. This cautionary tale satisfies in its culmination of long-overdue justice for spurned women.” – Library Journal (starred) What about Olive? A still grieving widow who has been running from her past, she had long thought she knew exactly what occurred all those years ago, but what if she’s been wrong all along? The mystery was sound and everyone had a valid motive. The thing I struggled with the most was that, while we saw all the awful things Jamie did, I didn’t think the author gave us enough of a glimpse into what actually made these ladies LIKE him so much. Obviously there were some reason everyone fell in love with him but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Overall, I wish I could’ve gotten to know all the characters better, but the sheer number of them and the constant jumps between timeframes made it somewhat hard for me to fully engage. That being said, the 2nd half of the book gelled for me better than the first half. I liked the ending- it was abrupt but it worked.

Mesmerizing and unflinchingly dark...Wilding is a powerful new talent whose captivating characters will stay with readers long after they’ve finished the book.” – Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ingenue

Seven women. A man’s head. Who swung the axe that killed Jamie Spellman? Rose Wilding’s debut novel is about the anger of women who are not heard and what happens when they take justice into their own hands.

Wilding revealed she was “absolutely buzzing”, adding: “This twisted story has lived in my head for so long and I am so happy it’s found the perfect home at Baskerville.” Wilding’s debut thriller asks which of seven women beheaded a man they all had compelling reasons to kill. Wilding is from Newcastle upon Tyne, works as a tutor, and has an MA in creative writing from The University of Manchester, where her tutors included Jeanette Winterson, who recommended her writing to Evans at PFD.

It would, personally, have worked better if the only POV we had was the detective’s, if we didn’t know anything about any of the other characters or their movements. Then, perhaps, there would have been some tension in it all. Because they all have motives, that’s kind of the point. But a more conventional framing of seven suspects and they’re all lying would have probably been a lot more thrilling. The book plays about with time, and necessitates a regrouping now and again to sort out where the reader is in the timeline of the story. This does seem a popular thing to do at the moment, and I do not like it, but it takes only seconds to arrange your mind and you are on your way again and following the story. Earlier in the evening, seven women received a message from an unknown number asking them to gather in the “usual place” at 7 PM for an emergency meeting. There was a lot of great social commentary of the treatment of women who have been victimized; whether they are believed, or painted as somehow responsible for the evil things that have happened to them. A beautifully written debut thriller about love, loyalty, and manipulation, Speak of the Devil explores the roles in which women are cast in the lives of terrible men . . . and the fallout when they refuse to stay silent for one moment longer.