The List of Suspicious Things
23rd March 2025
It’s Yorkshire in the late 80s, where we meet a nearly-teenage girl with a lot of problems. But that description of the man character shouldn’t imply anything about who should be reading the novel - it would be a mistake not to pick this up as an adult.
The story is framed around Miv’s hunt for the Ripper, but is really about the people that populate the town, and the social dynamics of the time. It’s written with a more up to date awareness, but the events feel entirely plausible in context.
I felt like the quotes on the cover were misleading. They aren’t wrong as such, but don’t put across that some quite harrowing things are going on, at least in the background of the story, and often the foreground.
I found it utterly engaging, and the larger type of the paperback made it nice and easy on the eye as well. The characters are very compelling and easy to empathise with, and it’s both cute and terrifying to see the world through Miv’s naivety.
