#BookReview ‘The 13th Girl’ by N.V Peacock

About the book…

12 girls gone. Can she save The 13th Girl?

After decades in a mental health hospital, Dee knows that people find her creepy – because they tell her so. Once the reluctant star of an infamous documentary, she is trying to blend back into the outside world. But when a string of local girls disappear, only to be found dead days later, she becomes fixated on the case and decides to film her own True Crime documentary.

There is a serial killer on the loose – The Righteous Wraith. Girls are being found one by one, their bodies gruesomely staged in the most innocent public spaces. With the killer taunting the police and public fear mounting, the armchair detectives begin pointing fingers at one suspect. But for Dee, something isn’t adding up.

She knows what it’s like to be accused of something that you didn’t do.

She resolves to prove his innocence, unmask the real killer, and save The 13th Girl.

But who will believe her?

My thanks to publishers Hera Books for approving my review request for ‘The 13th Girl’ by N.V Peacock which was published on February 1st 2024 in e-book format.

I absolutely loved her first novel, ‘Little Bones’,so this was super exciting to have this opportunity.

What you have here is a first person narrative, from the perspective of Dinah, Dee, whose past history is littered with trauma, and who is in a recovery phase having been released from a secure mental health hospital. Her history is revealed slowly, she has infamy hanging over her as the subject of a ‘documentary’ where she is made to undergo an exorcism following a change in personality after a traumatic head injury.

Her parents, the ones who initiated this process , are tip toeing around her which is not helping, and she is reminded at every meal time of her mental health by the plastic cutlery which they lay out for her, making it impossible for her to eat. Instead, she nourishes herself with the sweetness of cakes and biscuits , a neat counterpoint to the lack of nourishment, physical and spiritual that her parents give her-or don’t.

One of her conditions of leave is to hold down a job, and here she struggles to fit in, is viewed with suspicion, and all the things which rightly make her feel uncomfortable, are seen as another barrier to her being part of a team. This makes it easy for her co-workers to throw her under a bus when it comes to some creative accounting…

So you have a vulnerable young woman who has spent her formative years recovering from a traumatic head injury and unwittingly famous for being publicly traumatised, learning to adapt int he real world, where a serial killer is on the loose. She is absolutely an unreliable narrator yet the first person narration puts you in such close quarters to Dee that you cannot help rooting for her in spite of this.

In trying to pull some measure of control back, she tells her parents she is making a documentary on recycling in the local area, but what she is really doing is investigating The Righteous Wraith. He is fully taunting and using the press and social media to undermine public confidence , and creating an atmosphere of terror. So Dee sets out to hunt him down and reclaim her voice, and the journey she goes on is completely unforgettable.

Yes this is a murder mystery but it is so, so much more than that.

It really holds a mirror to the way that social media has given so many people a voice without them ever feeling accountable for what they are saying in a public space. The ghoulish nature of co-opting the Wraith’s killings into a personal narrative is seen in so many quarters now, from online vigilantes and ‘sleuths’, to a sense of ownership over the victims, it’s stripped bare and makes a very disturbing picture. What is worse, the clamouring ghouls or the righteous wraith?

Dee’s motives are dubious but you can understand what she is trying to do, and as she throws up suspect after suspect you become increasingly worried about her safety , and I really was so wrong footed time and again about who was responsible.

And as well as creating an intriguing mystery, it’s a character study in the way we treat and support those with mental health issues, Dee has very little support, she is put in a job which she has to keep or be returned to St Alda’s but is being exploited by that team and not really listened to by her psychiatrist. The only person who genuinely listens without condition is her priest, he puts time and space aside for her and only has her best interests at heart, Which is interesting given her experience with exorcism as a young woman and the religious connotations to that event.

N.V Peacock has created this wonderful , empathic novel with a serial killer as the hook, but Dee is the one who makes you stay up after bedtime, turning page after page after page…immediately after reading this, I hunted down a copy of her other book, ‘The Brother’ (review coming soon)and read it at white hot heat.

Thank you for helping me break my book reading slump, I don’t know what to do now I have read all 3 of your books….more please!

About the author…

Nicky lives in lovely Northamptonshire. She works full time in sales and spends her spare time writing, reading, and running a group for local writers. She started her writing career with short stories in anthologies for publishers all over the world, before turning her hand to novels. After writing 2 YA supernatural series, she decided to indulge her dark side and write an adult thriller, and hasn’t looked back since.

As an avid writer, she spends every minute she can creating characters, drafting stories and plotting. Nicky writes for her readers and appreciates every review she receives; without them, she couldn’t do what she loves.

Links-https://nvpeacockthrillers.wordpress.com/

Twitter @NickyP_author @HeraBooks