Chris Whitaker - All the Wicked Girls

Read what people are already saying about

CHRIS WHITAKER

Chris Whitaker is leading the pack of hungry young crime writers by a long mile... youll ache when its over. A very real, very rare talent

SARAH HILARY

A novel you swallow whole because you cant help yourself, and then go back a second time to savour what you missed. Wonderful

M. R. CAREY

This book blew me away. Extraordinarily good. Gripping and heartbreaking

DEBORAH OCONNOR

A remarkable book that made me blub

MIKE THOMAS

Phenomenal

JO SPAIN

Stunning

MICHELLE DAVIES

Awesome book. Superbly written. A real work of art and a league above so much of the crime fiction out there

NEIL WHITE

This is really something else... an ambitious novel that is part parable, part morality tale, part crime novel and which will stay with the reader for a long time

G. J. MINETT

All The Wicked Girls is impossibly good... This is a crime story with a difference, a beautifully plotted, genuinely absorbing set of character studies... Pure magic on the page

LIZ LOVES BOOKS

An absolute delight... Highly original

GUARDIAN

Perpetually fascinating

HEAT

A gripping debut

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Brilliantly comic and tragic

SUN

Unforgettable

LITERARY REVIEW

Completely blew me away
LISA HALL , bestselling author of Between You and Me

My pick for crime novel of the year
EMMA FLINT , bestselling author of Little Deaths

Chris Whitaker builds an entire town in the readers head and masterfully inhabits it with comic, poignant, gripping life
DAVID WHITEHOUSE , bestselling author of Mobile Library

The best thing Ive read in a while

THE LITERARY SHED

A beautifully written story of love, friendship, beliefs, fear, passion and Im not embarrassed to say I cried at the end... each page is a literal work of art

COMPULSIVE READERS

Comes to a dramatic and totally unexpected conclusion

IT TAKES A WOMAN

You seriously have to read this book

LIPSTICK & LACE

This was a fun and cleverly written book, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good mystery with a hint of humour!

EMMAS BOOKERY

The characters are skilfully written, so easy to get lost in their lives

LINDA STRONG REVIEWS

I couldnt let go, I read it from cover to cover because there was no way I could leave it without knowing... This is an exceptional piece of work

EMMA , GoodReads Reviewer

Set in a small-town America and filled with some of the most exciting characters I have seen in fiction for ages

READING ROOM WITH A VIEW

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this; there are so many delightfully comic touches along the way, but all supported by a deeper sentiment and characters you cant help but feel for

BURIED UNDER BOOKS

Contents

For Charlie and George, my boys.
And for Ayisha Malik (because I honour my bets).

1995

Summer

There aint no meaning.

Thats where the fear lay all along. Thats what they didnt get, all those people yellin and screamin on the television, those preening pastors crossing the air, those parents locking down their teens like they could keep grip on their wanderin souls.

And when it was over they couldnt take itthat discovery. They went on mourning, they spoke of before like before was real or something. The death of ideals.

I get it thoughthe need for good and evilbut that endless stretch of gray between, thats where youll find me and Raine, and maybe Pastor Bobby too.

Raines my sister. I got a photo of us on my nightstand, in a sparkly frame shaped like a heart; gaudy as hell but my daddy bought it for me. Were young in that shot, arms linked, bubble-gum smiles and eyes squint cause we never did keep our sunhats on. We were camping up by the Red River, the part where the bank runs low and the water breaks for brown rocks so slick we werent never allowed to wade out. Thats the best spot for fishin. Daddy reckons hes pulled out striped bass just as big as the kind Uncle Tommy caught when he fished the Coosa.

Thats also the very same spot where Chief Black found a penis in the fall of 1985, back when the whole country was hot with talk of the McMartin preschool case and the couple hundred kids they reckoned was ritually abused there.

Its far and away the most excitin thing thats ever happened in the town of Grace so we all know the story by heart.

*

The penis belonged to Richie Reams. Richie was a high school football studbig arms and light eyes and fingers that smelled of pussy most days. He lived with his momma in a single-wide over in the scratch-ass town of Haskell, though she spent her nights with a hard-drinkin trucker she met at the bar she tended.

Coach said Richie was destined for greatness if he could stay outta trouble, but that werent Richies way. Too much of a weakness for girls. Supply was dwindling though, especially being as Richie had a leanin toward blond-haired, blue-eyed innocents. There werent many of those left in Haskell. Course they still had the hair and the eyes, but Richie had fucked the innocence right outta them. Thats why hed ventured into Grace. Virgin huntin.

He set his sights on Mandy Deamer. She went to Westview, same high school I do. Ive seen her photo: Farrah hair and dimpled smile, the kinda pure that turned Richies insides out.

He made sure to bump into Mandy outside Maes Diner on the first day of summer break. Mightve made his move straight off but she kept a bull of a girl as her sidekick: Franny Vestal. Franny was the cruel kinda big; six two and wide, and dressed head to toe in black most days. She had her eyes set hard on Richie from the get-go, like she could see through the smoke in his mind. Hed tried to soften her with a couple throwawaysnice eyes, tall like a model, had a friend for herthe kinda lines Richie thought a fat girl shouldve swallowed whole. Not Franny. Richie told Black hed reckoned she was a dyke.

Mandy caved two weeks later. Realized her mistake after Richies gold promises died hard in the blessed light of day. He was safely back in Haskell by the time she found out she was carryin his baby.

Four months into the pregnancy Mandy took her own life. The shame got to her; hot stares and cold whispers and holy judgment.

Her brother Harvey found her hangin from the long beam in the barn behind their place. Messed him up bad enough for the Deamers to pull their kids from Westview and school them at home from then on.

Franny came for Richie in the dead of night. Black later told the Briar County News shed held chloroform over his mouth, so he didnt wake when she stripped him naked, though he did when his cock came off.

She left him bleedin and screamin but called 911 cause she werent no murderer, she was just righting a wrong. She tossed his dick into the Red on her way home. A few hours later it washed up on the bank.

Lottie Stimsons dog found it, picked it up in his slobberin mouth. Lottie wrestled it from him, screamed, then fetched Black, and Mitch Wild, who was Blacks partner back then.

They sent Lottie on her way, she was cryin bad. Black told her hed stop by her place to take a statement, also told her to keep her mouth shut till then. Course shed been straight on the telephone; said shed heard noises in Hells Gate, probably the killer gettin a good look at her. She dressed it up nice enough for my momma to head straight over with a bottle of Barton.