A Quiet Contagion
In 2017 England, uptight nurse Phiney Wistman is traumatised when she is told that her grandfather, Wilf, has jumped off a railway bridge and died. But his demise is puzzling. Wilf had polio and would have found it difficult to leap, plus he had travelled to Coventry on the day of his death, but no one has any idea what he was doing there. Did he fall or was he pushed? Phiney investigates, and it leads her back to 1957, when Wilf was working in a Coventry laboratory as a teenager, and to a mysterious accident and a cover-up. Journalist Mat Torrington says he wants to expose the secret, working together with Phiney. But after another strange death and an attack on Phiney, she wonders if she can trust Mat.
The story is neatly told in a dual timeline. I initially had trouble identifying the seven, mainly male, 1950s characters, but they became clearer later. Jesmond based her tale on an incident in America, inventing something similar for the UK. The reader is taken on a journey from postwar Britain to the 21st century with prejudices of earlier times reflected in terms of the roles of women and gay people.
It’s a tight plot, and the red herrings had me guessing unsuccessfully all the way through as to what happened and who was to blame—just what any thriller writer wants from their reader. A very satisfying read from the author of the Jen Shaw mysteries.
