Knife River by Justine Champine: an engrossing crime thriller – book review –

A campaigning writer who has served as an organiser on the NYC Dyke March Committee and at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Justine Champine’s short fiction has appeared in various US publications but now this exciting author turns her laser focus on a stunning debut mystery thriller which puts her firmly on the literary crime map.

From the opening chapter of this hard-hitting and atmospheric tale of two sisters coping with the discovery of their mother’s skeleton 15 years after she disappeared, Champine takes readers on an unforgettable journey into a shadowy world filled with tension, buried secrets, and a sense of loss that haunts the pages like a restless ghost.

But the intriguing murder mystery, which simmers seductively at the beating heart of this beautifully written and created novel, is only a part of the story as Champine digs deep into the human psyche to examine the destructive fall-out from an unresolved tragedy, and the complexities of a troubled sibling relationship.

Jess and Liz Fairchild have hardly seen each other, or even talked, since Jess, then aged eighteen, walked out of the family home in the small, claustrophobic town of Knife River north of New York City ten years ago. Liz – six years older than 13-year-old Jess – had raised and cared for her younger sister after their mother Natalie mysteriously disappeared when she set off from home for a walk after a row with Liz.

It was a tragedy that turned Liz into a nervous, unkempt, unsmiling kind of woman who works hard as a teller at the bank and keeps the house pretty much as her mother had it, still holding on to the hope that Mom might come back one day, and using that vain hope, Jess reckons, as an ‘excuse to remain on the outside of her own life.’

The months of waiting for news about their mother turned into years but while stubborn Liz never seemed to edge toward acceptance, lesbian Jess left home as soon as she was eighteen. Since then, she has never had her own place, fits all her things into a few bags, has found a steady job transcribing medical reports, and has moved in with one girlfriend after another.

But trying to outrun her grief and confusion has never really worked for Jess. ‘It was the wondering that ate me from the inside – there was no refuge, no depth of dreaming that could stifle it.’ She had always imagined that getting confirmation that her mother was definitely dead would feel like ‘being ripped back through time,' and knock her to the ground.

Instead the phone call from Liz telling her that their mother’s bones have been found in woodland brings Jess only ‘stillness’ and she returns home to Knife River, where the town itself seems to be frozen in time, and the two sisters are thrown together once more.

As days turn into weeks, Jess reignites a love affair with her school friend Eva and finds that her understanding of the past, her sister, and herself is becoming more and more complicated... and all the while, the list of suspects responsible for her mother’s terrible fate becomes more and more ominous.

As much a heartfelt exploration of the anguish of lives left in limbo as it is the unfolding of an intriguing murder mystery, Knife River packs a powerful punch full of startling revelations, razor-sharp insight, soul-searching tenderness, and the unique bonds that mark out the relationship between two very different – but both trauma-damaged – sisters.

Through Jess and Liz, we see how the siblings have tried to manage – in their contrasting ways – the devastating disappearance of their mother without either of them achieving a solution, or a resolution, to the gaping hole in their lives.

Cocooned in memories of her mother and ‘tethered by fantasies of a miraculous return,’ stay-at-home Liz ‘left the door open a crack’ while Jess found it easier just ‘to slam it shut,’ leaving the town abruptly at adulthood, only to fall into an aimless, nomadic and unsettled life with a string of girlfriends.

With its tantalising, slow-burn plot line, an unsolved murder forever casting a long and poisonous shadow, and the added layer of a rekindled romance between Jess and her friend Eva, this is an engrossing crime thriller with a compelling psychological twist and a fierce emotional intensity that is guaranteed to take your breath away.

A cracking debut!

(Manilla Press, hardback, £16.99)