First Published: 2010
The prologue of the novel describes a woman waking up in the middle of the night after apparently receiving or making a phone call, and then she leaves in her car in her pyjamas.
I imagine that the woman is the narrator of the novel, Karen. The book starts with Karen driving through London. Alice, her nine-year-old daughter is sitting in the back and she is all excited because Rex, her father, is in the car with them, and it seems it is a novelty for her to have her father home. As the novel develops, we discover that Rex has been in prison for murder, and after ten years in jail he has been released.
Karen’s narrative fluctuates between past and present. We discover that the key of the mystery is a girl called Biba. Karen is very gifted for languages, and she goes to Queen Charlotte’s College. She shares a house with three other girls and she starts going out with Simon, who she is not crazy about. Three years later Simon breaks up with her, and she feels it like a relief. The next day she sees this girl dressed in a mixture of clashing clothes who is writing on a notice board about needing someone about a German translation. Karen and Biba start talking, and the latter begs her to help her with a song she has to sing in German. Biba is an actress.
They go to a bar and Karen helps her. Then Biba tells her to come to a party at her house for her twenty-first birthday. The next Saturday Karen goes there, and she finds the house full of people, and for an hour she drinks the wine she brought, but she does not see Biba. Then Biba appears, wearing an old wedding dress, but she looks spectacular. Then Biba places an ecstasy pill in Karen’s mouth before Karen can say anything. For a while nothing happens, and she gets to meet Rex, Biba’s brother, who looks like her but seems to be a soberer and more serious version. Then Karen feels sick and has to throw up, and after that, she can’t stop dancing and dancing and has the night of her life.
After that night, Karen can’t stop thinking about Biba and how wonderful she is.
Interesting start. I am curious to know who Rex killed, where Biba is at present and how come Karen apparently kept loyal to a murderer.
My Reading Journal 