Flynn Berry's Under the Harrow is a disconcerting, unsettling kind of read, which when you consider it is a story of suspense and mystery is really a good thing. I was already impressed, as this is a first novel, by the fact it is an Edgar Award finalist but the reviews were also quite promising--even Maureen Corrigan called it a "superbly crafted psychological thriller" which is "exquisitely taut and intense." I have to agree with her. About the time I was calling into question the first-person narration I noticed that the cover is sort of sparkly in the right light. It shimmers a bit and looks as if something was splattered across the image as there are dark splotches. I do read a book at lunchtime . . . was I careless and spilled something? No, it's not me, the shimmers are made to look like blood. All of a sudden I was feeling all sorts of creepy.
Nora and her sister Rachel are as close as two sisters can be. Nora lives in London and is a writer, but travels often to the small country village where her sister lives and is training to be a nurse. They depend on each other as there are no parents in their lives--a mother who has passed and a father they avoid. They spend their holidays in Cornwall, which holds a fond place in their hearts, but Nora is arriving with good news as she has been offered a grant to work in France. She comes expecting to find Rachel waiting for her at the train station or happily ensconced in her kitchen engaged in her favorite pastime, cooking.
There is no Rachel at the station, and the house has an odd feel to it when she arrives. It's as if something has flown out at her when she opens the door. And then she sees Rachel's dog Fenno, dead and dangling from the stairwell banister. Her sister obviously tried to fight of her murderer. She crawled up the stairs leaving bloodied handprints on the stairs and wall. By the time Nora realizes her sister is gone and she must call for help, she herself is covered in blood and the world around her is reeling.
All the details are there, from the first few pages on. So many things to notice and take in and over the course of the story it all begins coming together, but in odd juxtapositions. Like any good mystery, this is a puzzle to be sorted out and put together, but the more you read the more you realized that the pieces are not fitting, or that the picture they are revealing is not at all the one you are expecting to see. Rachel told Nora that Marlow, the village where she lives, is not 'quite right'. Something is wrong there and girls have gone missing or were assaulted. And some years back Rachel was attacked, but the perpetrator was never caught and Rachel's own behavior was called into question.\
And the deeper you go into this slim novel, the more you begin to question not only Marlow and its residents, but Nora herself. Maybe she is unhappy with the way the investigation is going, but perhaps more so, she is continuing Rachel's inquiries into the men who might have assaulted her all those years ago. Surely it must be related to her death now. She is sure it must be one man in particular who had shown such an interest in Rachel. Nora's behavior verges on the obsessive. Is it only the ties that bind two very close siblings? Or is there more to their relationship that is not being told to us?
The more I read the less I found to like about Nora and the more I began to question her motivations. Was she becoming unhinged because of the grief or was her true self coming out? There was something sinister about this story, so kudos to Flynn Berry for making me question the storytelling and the narrator, as for me that is a good suspense story. The pieces really are all there, but you don't realize what is important and who is being truthful until the very end. And then she still might surprise you!