A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford

'I don't know how yous can't give us peace,' Nana goes. 'The wean told you everything.' She knows I'm no wean but I see what she's doing.

'It's routine, Mrs Devine. Just in case she's remembered something.'

'Witnesses often recall details at a later date and our Jane is a very smart girl,' Val says and smiles like she's my friend or something.

That day, I call it Dummy Railway Day cos that's where it happened, Val had taken me into a cubicle at the police station to clean up cos I'd wet my pants. I heard her outside, talking to a man who wanted to know if the witness was any use. 'Doubt it,' Val said, 'she's from Possilpark. Bloody lucky if she can remember her own address.'

A Bad, Bad Place is set in 1979 Glasgow and follows Janey Devine, a twelve year-old girl who lives with her Nana Maggie. Thirteen days previously Janey was walking her dog Sid Vicious when she stumbled across the body of Samantha Watson. Janey has told the police that she can't remember what she saw, but neither the police nor other interested parties in the neighbourhood believe that. Manipulated and tricked by both the police, and people claiming to be concerned friends and acquaintances, Janey takes it upon herself to try and find the killer.

I loved this book. I loved the setting, I loved the strong sense of community and characters that leapt off the page. I loved the deep sense of empathy you could feel for the protagonists, and that preconceptions and conventions were challenged. I loved that this was a working class story too that celebrates community above all else.

In terms of plot development it's a relatively straightforward crime story. A grisly crime scene. Several potential suspects either ruled in or out as the story progresses. A few well-meaning spanners in the works, some less well-meaning ones. The novel chapters rotate between Janey's perspective and Maggie's. What makes A Bad, Bad Place stand out is in the framing of the story, told through the perspective of a child and her Nana who is her most staunch advocate and defender. Neither possess the training or abilities to solve crimes, but their experience compels them to find the truth and find justice for Samantha. The novel isn't as much concerned with police procedurals but how families and communities heal themselves after something so terrible happens. The holistic approach to such a terrible crime reminded me of the likes of Reservoir 13 by John McGregor and its consideration of the ripple effects of murder.

Frances Crawford described the inspiration for A Bad, Bad Place as reading a news story about a murder victim being found by a dog walker. She explained that after researching real cases I was surprised by the level of connection the finder had to the corpse. Even years after the event, they felt responsibility and concern for the dead. It's also this approach that gives a very over-subscribed genre some real originality. The novel is about more than just the crime itself. Crawford brings two less-heard voices to the story: that of a child and of a grandmother. The novel starts with a police interview, where both Janey and Maggie are seen as barely useful, to be thanked and shown the door after proving to be of no use. That sense of powerlessness comes across really strong in the novel, and it made me root for both of them all the harder.

The passage of time is used really well. The novel is fairly straightforward and linear, but this allows Crawford the space to grow the characters through the trauma that precedes the start of the novel. It's quite powerful that Janey is used as the lens to frame the crime, as her distress at what she saw becomes the reader's distress, and in that sense the brutality of the crime is both magnified while also being handled sensitively. Her remembering details often coincide with her starting an argument with her Nana, or withdrawing into herself. The wound to her knee which she sustained on the day she found Samantha's body is used as a powerful framing device of her trauma. Under stress and duress she picks the scab or rubs it to the point of becoming an open, bleeding wound. It seems like months have passed, yet her knee seems no better. Her guilt and trauma go through fluctuating states of being better one day, worse the next. The portrayal of Janey as a normal, imperfect kid just trying to do her best is so empathetically portrayed. She makes bad decisions and has emotional outbursts but they felt plausible. And for the most part the wide spectrum of characters are written with a great sense of empathy as well.

Without giving any spoilers, I found that the ending wrapped things up and was satisfying enough. Unlike some crime stories where a resolution seems to come from nowhere I felt like the answers added up. It didn't feel cheap or leftfield, which is a real pet peeve of some crime stuff. You know, like every volume of Rebus ending with a police officer being the murderer all along, or whatever the ending to Broadchurch was.

A Bad, Bad Place is a great debut novel, a great crime novel, and a great crime novel even for people that don't really like crime novels. I would love to pick up a physical copy when its out, and I really look forward to seeing what Frances Crawford does next. We need more working class voices in fiction.

A Bad, Bad Place will be published on 12th February by Transworld. Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy. You can pre-order a copy of A Bad, Bad Place from Bookshop.org, who will donate 10-30% of the cover price of the book to an independent bookshop of your choosing.