J.J. Green is
an Irish writer from Donegal and lives in Derry. She’s always been a writer and
has honed her creative writing skills throughout her adult life. As a social
and environmental activist, she also writes political essays for ZNetwork that
mainly focus on economic and environmental injustice. Unfortunately there is an
Australian sci-fi writer of the same name so their books can be mixed up on
Goodreads and similar sites.
Someone to
Blame
(Book Guild Publishing, 2024) provides a modern twist on the time-honored
poison pen plot, one of my favorite mystery tropes. Shay Dunne lives in the
Irish village of Kilcross, where everyone knows everyone else and knows their
business too. She has had a hard life, raising her son alone because his father
was forbidden by his family to marry her. But fate keeps delivering blows, and
this last one is just more than she can take. She is angry and she is upset and
she is determined to make someone pay for the wrongs she has suffered.
She selects
the two people she most believes at fault and she writes a carefully vague but
threatening anonymous letter to each of them. Printing it on plain white paper
that she handles with gloves and using the same laser printer to address the
envelopes, she is faultlessly careful to not leave anything traceable to her.
She mails them, not in the claustrophobic small village where they all live,
but in the closest town and sits back to wait. As might be expected, events
unfold unpredictably while rumors and accusations fly in all directions.
It's hard to
say much about this book without giving some of the key plot elements away.
Green writes very well and she has created a sympathetic character in Shay
Dunne. Even when her judgment is most flawed, it’s hard not to root for her
anyway. Deeply sad in some places, plot twists keep the action moving and I was
enthralled all the way through the satisfying ending. Recommended!
·
Publisher: Book Guild Publishing (October
18, 2024)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 328 pages
·
ISBN-10: 183574060X
·
ISBN-13: 978-1835740606
Amazon
Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/41425kj
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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