re:mote voices

Title: In Your Face
Author: Scarlett Thomas
Publisher:New English Library

Over the last week or so, I’ve been repeatedly starting books, so that at the moment I think I am part reading 5 books at once. Part of the reason for this is, while I am not having any problems with those books, I am a little unfocused, so I’ve been looking for something to grip me, something to catch me for its duration and pull me in.

Mixed in with those books I was reading were a couple of books I had gotten from my local library, to try and stem the habit of continuing to buy books, even though I have a pile to catch up on. With the return date on those books coming up I finished what I was going to, and took them back. It was in the library that I finally found what I was looking for, something that caught my attention and pulled me in.

There on the shelves was In Your Face by Scarlett Thomas, one of those novels which is on my “wanted but never seen” list. Scarlett Thomas is a young British writer, who should have her sixth novel in the shops in the next few months. But she is also one of those novelists that is too well kept a secret, with the result that are books tend to be quite hard to find. Well, her earlier ones at least, the most recent novel Going Out, is the one which is easiest to obtain.

In Your Face is the third of her five novels to date that I have read. Going Out, her story of a boy who can’t go out because of an allergy to the sun, and his best friend a girl who doesn’t want to go out because of her allergy to people. And Dead Clever, her first novel, and the first featuring Lily Pascale. For the most part Dead Clever isn’t especially easy to get, I ended up getting it in a charity shop, though I’ve seen it in the book shop once or twice since. In Your Face and the other Pascale novel Seaside, I have never seen in the shops at all, and online there tends to be some vagueness as to availability. So, ironically, one of the reasons I had gone to the library the last time was to look for books like these – that time I was denied, and came back with curious rather than prizes. Finding In Your Face this time was therefore something of a surprise.

Dead Clever is the first of the three Lily Pascale novels, introducing Lily as she leaves London with the collapse of a relationship. Leading her to stay with her mother in Devon, with the plan that it’ll only be for a little while. However once there she finds that the local university has an opening for a lecturer and she takes on the role. Having specialised in crime writing and contemporary literature it is fate that she should end up taking a class on this subject the week after a member of that class has been killed. Sucked into events Lily soon finds that she has solved the murder where no one else has been able to, and she has become involved with another member of staff. Or at least she would have become involved, if it weren’t for the one night stand that had left one of his students pregnant.

In Your Face brings us back to Lily at the end of this first term at the university. Her notoriety is starting to fade and life is looking to get back to normal. However with terms end she gets in to an argument with the other member of staff running up to his wedding, and receives a phone call from someone she was at Uni with who is hoping Lily can help her. Frustrated by her feelings for this man and the mess he seems to be making of her life, she takes hold of the excuse to get out of town. But this takes her back to London, and sees her involved in a murder once again.

Her fair-weather friend has become a journalist, with her latest article being about the rise of stalking as a crime. Unfortunately on the same day the magazine is published the three women who are featured are all brutally murdered. With the girl that wrote the article seeming to know something about it, and remembering Lily’s previous success, hoping that she can lend a hand. Matters are complicated however with the fact that the friend has vanished when Lily arrives. Undeterred she starts to investigate, ignoring the phone calls from back home that are trying to make her face up to what she is hiding from. As she goes from scene to scene and tries to put things together though, it becomes clear that someone is now stalking her, and most likely it is the murderer.

There are of course a multitude of police detectives, privates detectives, and every tom-dick and harry thinking they can solve a crime detectives, either in novels or television. But Lily comes into the category of accidental detective, reluctant detective, playing off the irony that she might be an expert on crime fiction, but she really doesn’t want to become an expert on crime reality. And yet she can’t help herself, once the clues start to be pieced together she is fascinated and compelled.

In Your Face links back to Dead Clever, though of course is pretty much readable without having read the first one. There are repeated references to the murder in Dead Clever, which play up the reputation of Lily, ranging from the bored to still be talking about it, to the I knew I knew your name from somewhere. There is also the continuation of her relation with the lecturer Fenn, and the appearance of her family at the start of the book. With In Your Face though her father becomes more of a presence, a passing contribution in Dead Clever, she is staying at his flat this time round. Though more importantly is the addition of her father’s new girlfriend, Star, a woman who works with the criminally insane, and is thrilled by Lily’s activities – giving her a sounding board and cheerleader.

Scarlett has an easy-going, readable writing style, which is particularly contemporary, working in pop-culture references which provide recognition of an environment, without going over the score. With these crime novels of her own, she creates a strong character with Lily, and does manage to create the desired atmosphere that keeps you wondering whether she will work it all out successfully. Like Dead Clever, there are curious asides in each chapter, from the point of view of the murderer. In Dead Clever those were a bit bemusing, and not entirely appreciated, so I wasn’t entirely pleased to see the same technique resurface in In Your Face. However in this case these little bits are more effective, providing a mirroring to Lily’s actions, and increasing the tension as we get his impressions of stalking her before she really realizes what is going on. Having gotten home from the library with In Your Face I started reading it that night, and pretty much read the whole 277 pages as one sitting.