Yorkshire 1979.
Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family Down South.
Because of the murders.
Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking.
Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all?
So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list; a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t.
But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families – and between each other – than they ever thought possible.
What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home?
I first heard about The List Of Suspicious Things when I was eating apple cake with Jennie Godfrey at an author event in Waterstones, which accidentally turned into a chat about love of books, and writing, in general. She told us how she grew up in Yorkshire while the Ripper was still loose, how she remembered the day he was caught and her dad realised that he was someone he knew – I immediately knew that February 2024 was too far away. It’s one of the only books that I have ever been intruiged enough about to pre-order.
It’s written from the perspective of Miv, a lovable tween who starts noticing the more ‘suspicious’ aspects of life around her while hunting for the Yorkshire Ripper in true ‘Five Find Outers – Enig Blyton’ style. Only, she’s sees them through the eyes of a child.
The mysteries are solved one by one, with chapters interspaced through the book from the perspective of the adults she is investigating, which shine complexity and compassion onto the things that we miss when we don’t take the time to look closer at our neighbours.
It hit personal notes for me – my mum was only a couple of years older than Miv, living in Yorkshire, when this book was set, and I remember her mentioning it to me briefly when I was younger – too young to have asked more questions about it. Reading this book, and seeing the myriad ways that the Ripper touched the day to day lives of those living around him, not knowing who it was, or who it would be next, made me think again about that throwaway remark she made all of those years ago. She’s not here for me to ask now that I am old enough to have the words, but I do have this book, which I will treasure.
I was utterly gripped by Miv and her neighbours, not noticing how hard I was feeling the storyline until tragedy struck. Reader, I was an absolute mess. I was ugly crying, there was snot – I hadn’t noticed that I had been snared until I was absolutely powerless before this book. I felt betrayed – for some reason I had expected this to be far more Enid Blyton than it was – I looked again at reviews and realised that I had cheerfully ignored all the warnings about it being heart-breaking. I only had myself to blame, and I was not sorry.
What makes this book special is that, unlike the Enid Blyton books that Miv herself (and me, and my mum) loved so much this is a child detective written for adults, not other children. The beauty of this book is in the things that Miv doesn’t understand yet, the context that goes over her head – until you realise that it doesn’t any more.
This was a beautifully written book which will have pride of place on my bookshelf, and is immediately being sent to my family back in Yorkshire. I can’t hear this story in the words of the woman I was thinking of most while I was reading it, but somehow Jennie managed to sound an awful lot like her.
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