Reviews for A bad, bad place
Publishers Weekly
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A 12-year-old girl makes a horrifying discovery in this haunting debut set in 1979 Glasgow, Scotland. The action opens with young Janey Devine following her dog into a side street, where she comes across the mutilated remains of Samantha Watson, the 22-year-old daughter of a local crime boss. Janey reports her find to police and tries to return to normal life in the hardscrabble Glasgow neighborhood of Possilpark, but anxiety about the killer is never far from her mind. The police, who are confounded by the crime, offer little help, leaving it up to Janey’s lone family member, Grandma Maggie, to help her move on. Janey, however, has a secret: she knows something about the murder that she kept from police, a detail that eats at her and fuels her desire for justice. Crawford shrewdly toggles between Janey’s viewpoint and her grandmother’s as the hunt for the killer slowly unfolds, capturing the fading innocence of a young girl and the complex social dynamics of a struggling but close-knit community. This marks the arrival of a promising new voice. Agents: Euan Thorneycroft and Oli Munson, A.M. Heath & Co. (Mar.)Correction: An earlier version of this review referred to the character Samantha Watson by the wrong last name.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Twelve-year-old Janey Devine is living in Glasgow in 1979 when she stumbles across the corpse of a young woman, Samantha Watson, near abandoned train tracks. Complicating matters, it turns out that Samantha was the daughter of a notorious gangster. What exactly did Janey see that morning when she found the body? Is she hiding something? The police officers who question her seem to think so. And if so, why? In her crime fiction debut, Crawford has created a pair of memorable characters in young Janey and her tough but kind grandmother, Maggie. Janey is street-smart in a strangely innocent way. Crawford brings readers inside her characters’ heads so that readers get to understand their way of looking at the world and their precarious places in it. The plot unfolds via the sharp use of dialogue, capturing the blunt honesty of children. A Bad, Bad Place is not only an engrossing read; it also authentically displays the distinctive working-class environment of Janey’s Glasgow neighborhood, which may be gritty, but Crawford shows people’s compassionate side, too. What’s more, the book is also surprisingly funny. A unique Glasgow tale with a universal spirit.
