Speak of the Devil

Wilding debuts with a wickedly clever feminist thriller about the murder of a corrupt womanizer. On New Year’s Eve 1999, in Newcastle, England, seven women sit in a seedy hotel, having answered a terse message: “Meet in the usual place tonight, 7 p.m. Emergency.” In the center of the room is Jamie Spellman’s severed head, which has stained the stack of bibles it sits on red with blood. The bible on top is opened to Leviticus 24:19: “An eye for an eye.” Each of the women knew Spellman, and each maintains their innocence in his murder, but at least one of them has put this gruesome relic on display. Was it widowed Maureen Jones, mysterious Sarah Smith, librarian Olive Farrugia, teenager Josie Kitchen, journalist Kaysha Jackson, chemist Ana Maria Cortês, or Jamie’s wife, Sadia? And, for that matter, what do each of those women have in common? Newcastle Det. Insp. Nova Stokoe is assigned to find out. Alternating viewpoints among the seven women and Sotkoe, Wilding charts how each woman’s path crossed with Jamie’s, and the mechanisms with which he abused each one’s trust, friendship, dreams, and bodies. With sure-footed prose, Wilding nimbly constructs a captivating treatise on revenge and exploitation that rumbles with deep, bracing anger. She’s a writer to watch. Agent: Kate Evans, PFD. (June)