Loved this book. It took a little while to get into and at first I was slightly confused as to which time in his life the narrator was describing. He looks back over important times and events in his life interspersing it with what is happening in his present. A shocking twist at the end. Would love to read more fiction from this author. ( )

The Girl on the Pier has an intriguing premise. Patrick fell in love with a woman known as Black on the pier in Brighton twenty years ago. The next day she disappeared from his life. Now he works as a forensic artist and is reconstructing a face from the skull of a dead woman who died near the pier some thirty years ago. Patrick knows it isn’t the same woman – the dates clearly don’t tie up – but the experience feeds his obsession with Black.

From this promising start, however, things go astray. We learn, in no particular order, about Patrick’s marriage, his childhood, his training as a forensic artist, even his attitude to flying, and there are some lengthy descriptive passages – his description of his childhood home reads like a landlord’s inventory. It’s hard to keep a sense of what’s important and what the story is really about.

There is some great writing at times. The description of the skeletal remains of the West Pier, the accounts of the physical and psychological processes he goes through when he reconstructs a face from a skull, the story of his mother. There are one or two intriguing plot twists. At others, the prose is a little clunky and the dialogue wooden, particularly from the female characters.

The difficulty is that the key people in Patrick’s life are absent women – Black, the missing woman, his mother. This can make it hard to dramatise. There needs to be more momentum in Patrick’s narration.

Patrick’s relationship with David, the retired police officer investigating the cold case of the dead woman, is interesting and could have been more central to the story. There is a sense that they are both allies and adversaries. David obsession with her is a nice counterpoint to Patrick’s with Black.

There are some interesting ideas and good writing in this book but for me it needs a ruthless editor and a stronger narrative spine.
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I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. ( )

A psychological romp through a man's memories. The loss of three women have affected Patrick throughout his life. His mother's suicide when he was young, a young girl Genevieve, when he was a young teen under the guardianship of his aunt, and Black a young photographer who spent one night with him on the pier. These women would haunt his memories and Black whom he looked for and could never find would always loom larger than life. It was her suggestion that led
to his career as a forensic artist, reconstructing the skills of the dead of identification purposes.

How accurate are our memories? Can they protect us and alternately lead us to, wrong conclusions? Can they hide things from us to protect our fragile psyches? In this wonderfully written novel, Patrick will unveil his thoughts and actions, peel back the layers and expose his darkest secrets. Highly readable and suspenseful. An amazing achievement form first time novelist. Recommend for those who like introspective psychological novels.

ARC from Netgalley. ( )