Ex-journalist Kay and her family are spending the summer in a rented farmhouse in Vermont. Kay is haunted by her traumatic past in Africa, and is struggling with her troubled marriage and the constraints of motherhood. Then her husband is called away unexpectedly on business and Kay finds herself alone with the children, obsessed by the idea that something terrible has happened to the owners of the house. The locals are reticent when she asks about their whereabouts; and she finds disturbing writing scrawled across one of the walls.
As she starts to investigate she becomes involved with a local man, Ben, whose life is complicated by his own violent past, his involvement in a drug-trafficking operation, and his desire to adopt an abused child. Their two stories collide and intertwine, heading towards a dramatic denouement. THE UNDERNEATH is a tense, intelligent, beautifully written thriller which is also a considered exploration of violence, both personal and national, and whether it can ever be justified.
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[Very quickly, the thick bush obscured the town, vanished it like a magic trick behind a curtain of green]***
(Head of Zeus, 10 January 2019, 336 pages, paperback, copy from @AmazonUK via #AmazonVine)
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First off, this is not the book I expected. Judging by the blurb (sort of), the title and the cover I thought this was some kind of supernatural book. It's quite the opposite. In a good way. I thought the book was terrific. The book is really about the darkness that can simmer beneath an ordinary façade of our lives. The book reminded me of the Hilary Swank movie, The Reaping. I'm not sure why apart from both features sections set in Africa. I thought the characters were great; they are all flawed and painfully real. Most of the book is spent in Kay's head as she probes into what happened to the owners of the house she rented and contemplates the end of her marriage. Kay is not the best mother, she is neglectful and feels constrained by the demands of her children but this makes her even more real and sympathetic. There's something dark and haunting about the book. I found it engrossing and disturbing in equal parts.
