Crime fiction is full of well-used tropes, from alcoholic detectives to silver sleuths. Even the titles can get into a rut – remember all the ‘The Girl…’ books? On the face of it, Jane Corry‘s The Stranger in Room Six ticks many of the boxes on our genre’s tattered bingo card.
But don’t let that title put you off, or the fact that much of the action takes place in Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart. Thankfully, instead of following the herd, Corry manages to create something new and unique with this cleverly conceived standalone psychological thriller.
The narrative plays between three characters, Belinda, Mabel and an unknown person who appears to be watching from the sidelines. When we first meet Belinda she is a bored wife, married to a dull husband and silently regretting her life choices so far. She dreams of the day when her daughters fly the nest and she can leave Gerald for good – but that’s all it is, a dream, because Brenda is the sort of woman who will carry on regardless.
Until, that is, she receives an anonymous call revealing the bombshell that Gerald has been having a long-standing affair. At first Belinda can’t believe it, but she decides to confront her errant spouse. It’s a simple push in the heat of the moment, but Gerald falls and hits his head and the next thing Belinda knows she’s in jail for his murder. Life can change in an instant, can’t it?
After serving 15 years, Belinda manages to blag her way into a carer’s job at the aforementioned Sunnyside, and that’s where she meets Mabel, close to her 100th birthday and a long-term resident. The pair become firm friends, and begin to swap stories about their pasts. Mabel is intrigued by Brenda’s time in prison, while Brenda is surprised that there is more to the elderly lady with bright blue eyes than anyone could ever guess.
Having lost her mother and sister in a bombing raid on London during the Blitz, while her father is away fighting, Mabel is sent to live with her aunt on the Devon coast. The place seems like a world of plenty after the deprivations of life in the capital, but her Aunt Clarissa is distant and cold, more interested in holding meetings and dinner parties than developing any kind of relationship with her niece. Which is why Mabel, keen to fit in and curry favour, eagerly takes on a secret mission at the behest of her aunt’s friend, Lord Dashland, known to everyone as The Colonel. She is young and naive and doesn’t realise she is helping spread fascist propaganda. And that’s not the half of it.
So, two very different but equally engaging narrative threads run through The Stranger in Room Six and they combine to keep the pages turning at a pace. Meanwhile, the faceless Stranger of the title is watching on, plotting and gradually manipulating Belinda into helping them find something which has been missing for many decades.
Through her two principal protagonists, Corry manages to spin a yarn that is both believable and enthralling, with an authenticity that will take you back into the dark days of war and immersed in life behind the multi-locked doors of a prison cell. Mabel is a winner from the off – she may be old and frail in body, but her mind is as sharp as a tack.
Meanwhile, Belinda starts off as a bit of a downtrodden drip, but is changed in so many ways by her experiences of life after Gerald. I enjoyed skipping around the timelines as each narrative unfolded, relishing the little chinks of lightness in a book which covers several dark subjects very well.
This a great story to while away a lazy summer afternoon and the perfect accompaniment for a poolside cocktail. But wherever you choose to read it, be prepared for that one-more-chapter moment and just keep on going!
Pensioners with secrets are also at the heart of The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths.
Penguin
Print/Kindle/iBook
£4.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars