The Unheard

The latest thriller from Nicci French concerns a small child who may or may not have witnessed a terrible event. Her mother, Tess, has to live with Poppy's newly unpredictable behaviour and her somewhat neurotic personality leads her to believe that both she and Poppy are in danger but no-one else shares her view.

Tess has fairly recently separated from her partner, Jason, but for some unfathomable reason has moved herself and Poppy into a downmarket flat and let Jason and his new wife live in Tess's much loved family home. Tess has a new boyfriend, Aidan, and several other men in her life – husbands of friends, helpers with child-care and such like.

One day Poppy brings a disturbing drawing home from nursery – it looks like a stick figure falling from a tower. At the same time, she starts displaying alarming behaviour: bed-wetting, swearing and biting other children. This leads Tess to the conclusion that Poppy has witnessed a murder (as you would) and that she and Poppy are in danger from one of the male characters in the story. Tess takes her fears to Poppy's teachers, her ex-partner, Jason, her family doctor and a child psychiatrist but no-one takes her seriously. Least of all the two police officers who become involved, Inspector Kelly Jordan and Inspector Ross Durrant, both deeply unsympathetic characters. Tess takes matters into her own hands and begins to research sudden and unexplained deaths in her area, particularly ones that might involve a young woman falling from a height. When she finds such a death, she is drawn into a nightmare world of fear, betrayal and murder – and with no-one to turn to.  

Husband and wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French are prolific authors of psychological thrillers and I am a great fan – particularly of their Frieda Klein series. But this wasn't one of my favourites. I believe they take it in turn to write the chapters and it's usually seamless but in this case, I think the seams show. On a personal level I'm not keen on thrillers of a violent kind that feature young children prominently and I would like to think that if a young child was to witness an unpleasant incident (just once, at an unspecified time and at an unspecified place) then it wouldn't radically affect their long-term behaviour as it does in this story.

In addition, there are some quite significant shifts in the manner and personality of the key players, not all of which ring true to me. This could be because we have two different hands at work here. Right at the end of the book the authors throw a curve ball in just one sentence. This is quite an arresting device but one which I felt needed a lot more development to contribute to a satisfactory ending. However, this could have worked for me if the story was part of a series and a teaser for the next part.

I found The Unheard to be an unsatisfactory psychological thriller from two writers I really admire. But, despite my reservations, this is a highly compulsive read even though none of the characters are very likeable. Apart from three-year-old Poppy, who is adorable. And Sunny, the cat.