THE FATE OF KATHERINE CARR by THOMAS H. COOK

THE FATE OF KATHERINE CARR

BY THOMAS H. COOK

THE BLURB:-

Since the murder of his eight-year-old son, George Gates has written local stories for the town paper. A former travel writer, once he specialized in writing about places where people disappeared, sometimes individuals, sometimes whole societies. Since the tragedy, he plays it small and safe.

The he hears about Katherine Carr, a woman who vanished twenty years before. She left nothing behind but a few poems and a bizarre story. It is this story that spurs Gates to inquire into its missing author's brief life and tragic fate, an exploration that leads him to make surprising discoveries about his own life.

THE REALITY:-

Weird. Definitely bizarre. It was one of those novels that forced me to go back and read sections, as I finished it and thought, 'What the fuck was that all about?!' This may have been my fault, as I bought the book from Poundland (yes, really!) and it took me a long time to read it, maybe because I've got a lot of other, stressful, things going on in my life. Following the floods that affected East London on election day, my cellar ended up under two feet of water and the bottom three stairs down into it were washed away, warranting a totally new staircase. As my electrics are down there, this is a serious problem.  I have my quotes and am now putting the matter to the insurance company. Also, Newham council have been on at me, as part of their “clean up Newham” campaign to erect a new fence at the front of my property and I have had trouble lining up a reliable builder. This is a fucking joke- maybe Newham council should think about cleaning up the people- such as the drug dealers that deal at the dead end at the back of my property and the prostitute who works the corner and who apparently lives in a garage opposite- first.

Rant over, now back to the review. I did a lot of picking up and putting down with this novel but found the thread easy to follow. The writing seemed a bit “out there” and, whimsical and... touched. You did question what drugs the author was on when he wrote this! It was a novel that was very unsettling, tackling nasty subjects such as the real horrors of society and the kind of dangerous sicko bastards who commit appalling crimes. It was all there in the detail, and that detail made for a very uncomfortable read. I learnt about various “lost societies” and, whilst it is always good to learn new things from a novel, the were very depressing things.

There is more than one story interlinked here, as you read George's story and also Katherine's writing and there's also another tragic character who George befriends via his work- Alice, a little girl with a penchant for crime stories. Alice is dying from progeria. Such disheartening subjects. The writing is good, though, and the stories do kind of come together at the end although you have to read between the lines as nothing is ever explained fully to the reader. I think it was the man who owned the meat market who attacked Katherine (though it could have been his never-revealed employee.) It looked like she disappeared rather than died, and I think she was the person in the yellow jacket who let George know that Teddy's death had been avenged. And I think Hollis Traylor killed little Teddy.

This is a story about vengeance, and passing on and teaching others the ability to do so, as Maldrow does to Katherine, and Katherine does to George. And the story ends with George seeking vengeance with Mr. Mayawati- another dreg of society, or so it would seem- and nothing is ever quite what it seems with this book.

A strange story. Maybe it was because I read the final thirty pages at one in the morning, but I had to go back and re-read sections to clarify things. Would I read more by this author? Maybe. But I wouldn't rush to do so,. Unnerving and unsettling.