Customer Reviews

The Facts of Life and Death (Unabridged)

‘Call your mother.’
‘What do I say?’
‘Say goodbye.’

This is how it begins. Living with her parents in the dank beach community of Limeburn, ten-year-old Ruby Trick has her own fears. Bullies on the school bus, the forest crowding her house into the sea, and the threat of divorce.

Helping her Daddy to catch a killer might be the key to keeping him close.

As long as the killer doesn’t catch her first..

So I recently read “Rubbernecker” from Belinda Bauer, also incidentally the first novel of hers I have read since Blacklands and it was so good that I was kind of worried that this one would fall flat. It absolutely did not do any such thing.

We follow along mostly with ten year old Ruby as she explores her world, puts up with bullies, hangs out with her friends and observes her people – she adores Daddy and is determined that he will be happy despite the fact that her parents are not getting on. Meanwhile young women are going missing, as a fledgling killer becomes more confident.

This was an extremely clever psychological thriller, especially as young Ruby’s viewpoint was so very authentic – she behaves like a ten year old with all the curiosity and wonder that time of life brings – and it was a different take on the way an adult would look at the world or peoples actions. Ruby, whilst helping her Dad try and track the killer, ends up with a lot of information that she doesnt realise is important. Offset that against the beautifully drawn police team (and not cliche at all – I thought Calvin was probably one of the most realistic sounding Police Officers I have ever read in fiction and boss Kirsty King was delightfully normal) and you have a cleverly constructed, character driven tale of the darker side of human nature. A thing that is a particular strength of Ms Bauers if this and Rubbernecker together are anything to go by.

Aptly titled – The Facts of Life and Death are indeed right in here – I thought this was terrifically good. Certainly one of my favourite “crime” novels I have read in 2014 so far.

Very much recommended.

Happy Reading Folks!

**thank you to the author for the review copy**

This is the fifth novel from the author,and shows her at her very best.
Set in rural Devon,in landscape in danger of flooding from the sea,there
is a murderer on the loose,who forces young women to undress and
telephone their mothers ,before murdering them.
Ruby Trick is an inward looking troubled 10 year old,caught in the cross-
fire of her parents disaffection for each other,when she accompanies her
father on evening trips to catch the culprit.
A brilliantly written atmospheric page-turner of a novel.

Women in a beach community and surrounding areas in Devon are being targeted by a sick individual.

When they have been captured they are stripped.

When they have been stripped they are told to make a phone call.... to their mother.

When they make the phone call... they are told to say goodbye.

When they say goodbye... their mother's watch.

Who suffers the most in this game of murder, the victim or the mother left behind?

Whilst this is happening, a young girl Ruby Trick is struggling with her own battles, she is being bullied on the bus to school, she is being bullied at school. She lives in such a small community that she has only four other children to play with. Ruby cannot play in certain places, not just because of this sick individual who seems to be prowling the area but because part of the cliff face where they live is dying. It is being swept away by the weather and by the sea.

For Ruby there is no solace at home, the house has leaks and drafts which are ignored by her jobless father who seems to spend his time dressing up as a Cowboy to join a local cowboy club and a mother who works every hour she possibly can whilst trying to bring up Ruby in better circumstances and better choices than her husband is showing Ruby. The arguments between the parents seem to be reaching breaking point, similar to the eroding of the landscape around them. Every storm breaks away a little bit more of the marriage. But for Ruby, her dad is the best and he doesn't seem to mind the extra chocolate or biscuits that she eats, as long as Ruby helps feed this Cowboy obsession and Ruby can be his deputy and they can try and catch the killer together.

The book starts by placing the building blocks of the characters and the community. You immediately get a sense of a community which is no longer on the map, it has been left behind for some reason to decay and destroy itself. The feeling of damp seeps off the page as Bauer describes the home that Ruby lives in and the surrounding area. The incessant weather is something which you think you would tire of living with and move away, but it is somehow pulling them all together to stay in this one place.

The characters also seem to have been forgotten and are destroying themselves and decaying in a place where it seems that sun never shines. This does make the characters in any way weak, they fact they have been well-formed and you can feel empathy and sympathy with them in equal measure. Ruby's childish innocence, to the rather weak police detective, escaping something he has become caught in and the isolated teacher Miss Sharpe, who sees something in Ruby that she recognises. To me it was if the surroundings had sucked the life out of these characters and there was no hope for them, which is one of the reasons I had to keep on reading of course, the book got under my skin.

This is a bleak thriller but that does not make it depressing, far from it. Bauer creates a twist and a turn, and in amongst all this desolation there is the murders that need to be solved, it is very different to her previous novels. For me it had a du Maurier-esque romance about it, for some reason I thought of Jamaica Inn, which no doubt was down to the descriptive landscape which made it all come alive from the page. It is a very different sort of book and not your conventional thriller or serial killer novel and because it did not fit a nice pigeon hole is the reason I really enjoyed the book.

"In Rock Cottage the living room floor had bulged and finally splintered to reveal a root of oak as thick as a man's leg."

The village of Limeburn in Devon, beset by encroaching tides on one side, and the insidious creep of the forest on the other, in constant danger of being crushed to sand by twin forces of nature, is home to the Trick family. Ten year old, red-haired, lonely Ruby shares her father's impatience with her mother, who always seems to be working or nagging them about sleep and vegetables. Ruby is Daddy's little girl, especially since he joined the Gunslingers, a group of amateur cowboys who hang out in nearby Clovelly to talk spurs and replica weapons in fake American accents. John Trick buys his overweight child's affection with tall tales, macho bragging and Mars Bars.

The story begins quietly, unusually for Bauer, with a rather gentle tale of a small, struggling family in a dank Gothic setting. Ruby, of course, grabs a hold of our hearts and has us rooting for her very quickly but others in the small community are intriguing and engaging too. At this stage the book almost seems to be shaping up to be a 21st century Cranford.

Then - oh my goodness - chapter five! One of the most terrifying scenes I've ever read. It comes from nowhere, it grabs hold of that Ruby-softened heart with a damp, cold hand and squeezes hard. No spoiler, this is included in the cover blurb, but if you're a mother, this really is your WORST possible nightmare.

After that, it's only a matter of time before another of those horrible scenes jumps out at us. We can't relax, and neither can the residents of Limeburn and Clovelly.

To everyone who's lived through the wettest British winter in living memory, this book will seem scarily, remarkably topical. When memories of seaside towns disappearing beneath waves, sea-walls being breached and even railways collapsing into the surf remain fresh in our minds, we feel the nervousness of Ruby, her friends and family, as the winds batter the house, the spray strikes the windows and the tides get ever higher. Once we know there's a madman around, we share their terror.

There is much to praise in this book. I loved the creepy, damp, dripping setting, and the dynamic between the three members of the Trick family. I loved the dopey, daydreaming detective, Calvin Bridge, facing an imminent shot-gun wedding, and drowning beneath a sea of hand-torn invitations, three-ply napkins and pink sugared-almonds. I loved plain, well-meaning, rabbit-keeping Miss Sharpe. One of Bauer's great strengths is her ability to create funny, engaging characters who are both intriguingly different and completely believable at the same time.

Is The Facts of Life and Death Bauer's best? Not sure. I did love it, and really enjoyed her being Gothic for a change, but I suspect most readers will still plump for either Blacklands or Rubbernecker as their favourite. This book is quieter, more subtle, and may not get the same attention as it's two flashier, older brothers. On the other hand, it's an extremely credible addition to her body of work, and almost certainly one of the best crime novels we'll see this year.

Just blew me away bought it on Mon finished it tues couldn't put it down came across blacklands n read all Belinda,s books without putting them down her style the thrill and suspence have me just waiting for the next bravox

Little Ruby Trick lives with her parents in a broken-down cottage called The Retreat in the tiny village of Limeburn in Devon. With the forest encroaching on one side and the sea threatening on the other, Limeburn is not the idyllic English village of fiction. This is a rain-soaked, muddy place, barely putting up a fight any longer against the forces of nature that are slowly crushing it into extinction. And Ruby's family is under as much threat as her home - with Daddy long out of work and no longer making much effort to do anything about it, while Mummy works full time and worries about money and Ruby's welfare. Daddy's much more fun, though - he's a part-time cowboy in the local Gunslingers club and spoils plump little Ruby with Mars Bars and chips. So Ruby always takes Daddy's side against Mummy and would do anything to keep his love. Including helping him hunt a serial killer...

This book starts off slowly by introducing us to Ruby's life. The descriptions of the village and its life are vivid and extremely topical given the amount of rain and flood damage the country has been suffering recently for real. And the constant threat of natural disaster combines with the isolation of the village to provide a nicely chilling backdrop for a story that suddenly darkens into something much more disturbing than the first few chapters might suggest. Because somewhere in this area of Devon, a man is beginning on a course of action that will eventually turn him into a serial killer; as the tagline says - every killer has to start somewhere. And this killer starts by abducting a young woman, then forcing her to phone her mother and tell her goodbye. As the attacks mount, John Trick and his fellow Gunslingers decide to hunt down the killer themselves, and Ruby gets the chance to join their `posse'...

Bauer has given us an original twist on the serial killer novel and writes with all her usual skill. The main adult characters are very well developed - we see them through Ruby's eyes but Bauer manages to give us enough information so that our interpretation of their actions is different from hers. However I felt the structure of the book wasn't as tight as Bauer's plots have been in the past, meaning that most of the surprises were revealed well before the thriller-like ending.

Bauer has given us a child's eye view in some of her earlier books, and is no less effective in this one in taking us into the mind of 10-year-old Ruby. However, I must admit that I got fairly tired of all the Mummy/Daddy stuff as the book wore on, especially since Bauer mainly kept the language very much at the level of a fairly immature 10-year-old's. It's very well done and I admire the skill, but for my personal taste I don't want to read vast swathes of over-simplified language and the half-understanding that a child's viewpoint inevitably gives if it is to be convincing. I did also wonder if many of today's 10-year-olds are quite as na�ve as Ruby seems to be.

I feel I'm being hyper-critical of a book that overall I thought was very readable and enjoyed quite a lot. Bauer's last book Rubbernecker was one of my favourites of last year and I suspect that's making me judge this one more harshly than I should, because it didn't quite live up to my perhaps too-high hopes for it. However, that still leaves it as a very good thriller with some novel twists, strong characterisation and a beautifully-evoked setting - so, despite my criticisms, highly recommended. 4� stars for me, so rounded up.

This is another wonderful story from the pen of Belinda Bauer.
Set, a little along the coast from Clovelly, in Limeburn a tiny village that once had a prosperous past, but never a pull for tourists to save its own economy. Slowly, the population and their homes seem to be surrendering to the economic reality, further squeezed by the advancing sea and the encroaching countryside. The hamlet has just 5 children who are forced to play together, one of whom is Ruby Trick. This is her story, during a changing time as she moves from small child into a young girl on the cusp of puberty. However, it is a wider threat to the whole of North Devon that will change her life forever and take her more rapidly into the world of adulthood. A serial killer is at work; no young woman appears safe and Ruby is determined to help her Daddy try to catch the murderer.
The author has always to my great pleasure shown great skills in voicing young people and writing from a child's perspective. That strength is demonstrated here with compassion and wit, through Ruby's coming of age, in her relationships at home, at school and as a new appointed deputy in her Dad's gunslingers' posse. Her relationship with her Father is crucial to this story and is beautifully explored, especially in their dialogue and interactions.
The sense of place is also beautifully drawn. I had visions of the author bribing local Welsh fisher folk to cross the Bristol Channel in secret to spy/research the geography and gather a sense of time and place. My partner suggested she probably used the Severn Bridge a couple of times. Whatever, Belinda Bauer has captured the locale and written so well that you can smell the sea, sense the damp and have to pause for breath as you climb one of the paths out of Limeburn.
This is an easy book to read and you can quickly progress through the book on the back of this discerning storyteller.
As with all her books, this novel has a dark side. The author's most clever attribute is her ability to look at stories from a fresh perspective. Here it is through the eyes of Ruby; the horrors of these crimes will change her life forever and live long for the reader long after you finish this excellent novel.
The strength of a novel is that places and characters stay with you; this novel is memorable but also cries out to be read again.