de Mariaffi - The Devil You Know

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ALSO BY ELISABETH de MARIAFFI

How to Get Along with Women (stories)

Touchstone

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2015 by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Epigraph excerpted with permission from Celestial Navigation by Paulette Jiles (McClelland & Stewart, 1984).

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition January 2015

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Interior design by Claudia Martinez

Jacket design by Jason Heuer

Jacket photograph plainpicture/Mohamad Itani

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

de Mariaffi, Elisabeth, 1973

The devil you know : a novel / Elisabeth de Mariaffi.First Touchstone hardcover edition.

pages cm

1. Women journalistsFiction. 2. MurderInvestigationFiction. I. Title.

PR9199.4.D427D48 2015

813'.6dc23

2014016059

ISBN 978-1-4767-7908-9

ISBN 978-1-4767-7910-2 (ebook)

Touchstone Read Group Guide

The Devil You Know

This reading group guide for The Devil You Know includes an introduction, discussion questions, a Q&A with author Elisabeth de Mariaffi, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

In the vein of Gillian Flynns Sharp Objects and A.S.A. Harrisons The Silent Wife , The Devil You Know is a thrilling debut novel about a rookie reporter, whose memories of the murder of her childhood best friend bring dangerand a stalkerright to her doorstep.

The year is 1993. Rookie crime beat reporter Evie Jones is haunted by the unsolved murder of her best friend Lianne Gagnon, who was killed in 1982, when both girls were eleven years old. The suspected killer, a repeat offender named Robert Cameron, was never arrested, leaving Liannes case cold.

Now twenty-one and living alone for the first time, Evie is obsessively drawn to finding out what really happened to Lianne. She leans on another childhood friend, David Patton, for helpbut every clue they uncover seems to lead to an unimaginable conclusion. As she gets closer and closer to the truth, Evie becomes convinced that the killer is still at largeand that hes coming back for her.

1. What was your first impression of Evie Jones? How did your trust in her account of things andher reliability as a narrator shift as her obsession with the missing girls cases and Lianes murder deepened?

2. How is Evie affected by Liannes murder? How does it continue to affect her and the choices she makes as an adult? Do you think Evies fascination with serial killers is because of or in spite of her proximity to Liannes murder?

3. Compare and contrast the different parent-child relationships in The Devil You Know : Evie and her parents, Lianne and her parents, David and his parents. How does each parents decision affect the outcomes for his or herchildren? Think about the decisions about protection and safety versus independence and wanting whats best for ones child.

4. On Evie comments on the seed of missing child cases: You just need one adult to look away, and another one to look too closely. How do you think parenting behaviors, such as letting your child walk home from school alone, have changed since the 90sin response to the dangers presented by adult predators?

5. How is Evies mother, Annie Jones, shaped by her tough upbringing? How does this change her behavior as a mother?

6. Consider the theme of public spectacle and media sensationalism: what does it say about our culture that were all obsessed with these violent crimes and missing girls cases?

7. Why wont Evies mother Annie say more when Evie confronts her in the bar ()? Do you think she has a right to keep her past to herself? Why or why not?

8. What do you make of the relationship between Evie and David? How does he try to act as her protector? Why wont she let him?

9. The novel opens with Evie in her kitchen and the stalker on her fire escape, a scene that is repeated later in the novel. Why do you think the author chose to include this repetition? What does it reveal about Evie?

10. The novel is full of very specific details about Toronto in the 90s. Why do you think the author includes these details? Could Evies story have taken place anywhere, or is it specific to this city?

11. Compare and contrast the different female relationships in the novel: Evie and Lianne, Evie and her mother, Evie and Angie. Why do you think Evie doesnt have close female friends after Lianne?

12. How does Evies mental state change throughout the novel? How does her desire to appear unafraid and self-reliant conflict with her growing paranoia and anxiety? Does she have good reason to be paranoid?

13. Angie gives Evie this advice the night before Evie drives to Whitefish Falls: Stop living in the past, Evie. Time to get on with it. () After the events of the novel, do you think Evie will be able to take Angies advice?

What was the inspiration for The Devil You Know ? What do you find interesting about missing girls cases?

I grew up in Toronto through the late 80s and 90s, so that experience of widespread fear around the Scarborough Rapist and, later, the murders attributed to Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, is really close to meI lived that very closely as a teenaged girl. I do think this is a universal thing. Every major city has a variation on that storythe Hillside Strangler, the Night Stalker, the Long Island Serial Killer. As a young woman coming of age, youre struggling with some big conflict: you want all the fearlessness of striking out on your own for the first time and creating your adult lifeat the same time, women are constantly told to be afraid, to fear for their own safety. Its tremendously difficult to negotiate that conflict. Its exhausting. Your physical safety is such a basic thing, and I think Evies anxiety just permeates every part of her life.

Theres a moment in the novel where Evie is sitting in the car, in an underground parking lot, and shes rhyming off statistics about womens safety: Youre more likely to get raped if youre wearing a ponytail, less likely if youre carrying an umbrella. I think women carry these facts with them like a kind of absurd Rolodex. I actually got those from my own daughter, who was fifteen at the timeshed read them in a magazine aimed at teenaged girls. That kind of ingrained anxiety is just part of the experience of growing up female. It drives me crazy.