Member Review

Her husband Edward and 12-year-old daughter Honor have always know that Catherine Allen was the survivor of a family tragedy. But it’s not true that her parents and sisters died in a house fire, as she claims. In fact, Dr and Mrs Carter were killed as they slept, stabbed multiple times with kitchen scissors by their pre-teen daughter. She was arrested, charged and locked up; her sister went into foster care.
Now, 21 years later, the case has reared its ugly head again as one Carter sister goes public to try to track down the other, As the narrative progresses, a harrowing story emerges of two little girls despised and abused by their outwardly respectable parents. The descriptions of how they are treated are so upsetting that you can only feel sympathy for the sister who cracked.
This story is tense and dramatic from its very beginning, when we meet the Carter sister's childhood friend 12-year-old Brinley alone in a lightning storm, traumatised enough by the death of her own mother without the added burden of her friends’ tragedy. As a thrilling domestic noir, the plot supports itself with the drama and danger of the past seeping into the present in a tense and thrilling climax.
But author Fiona Cummins goes one step further and forces us to examine our attitudes to children to kill. Do we believe that they can be rehabilitated? Or should they should be punished for life? Maybe the burden of guilt, of lies and unhappiness ensures that they punish themselves.