House of Mirrors by Erin Kelly

Erin Kelly’s latest novel is a return to characters who started life in The Poison Tree. Rex and Karen are a bohemian couple, who like a quiet life and love their daughter Alice who has flown the nest to live in London with her boyfriend Gabe. Karen is still living with the secret of what she did years ago, constantly worrying that Rex or Alice will discover the truth. Rex came from the wealthy Capel family, but the couple are far from comfortable. Rex is estranged from his wealthy father Roger Capel who has new and much younger wife and family. There’s a reason the couple keep a low profile, as a young man Rex was convicted of double murder. What happened on ‘The Night Of’ has overshadowed them all. Rex and his sister Biba were alone at the family home, when Biba’s boyfriend turned up and an argument ensued. The disturbance alerted the neighbours and one came round to see if everything was okay. Within minutes both Biba’s boyfriend and the neighbour are dead. There are so many questions about what happened that night. What was the argument about? Where did the gun come from? Were Rex and his sister the only ones there that night? Rex took the blame for the murders and served his time, with Karen staying faithfully by his side throughout. Did Rex really commit the crime? However, the mystery that has haunted the family for years is what happened to Biba? After that night she has never been seen again.

Rex and Karen’s daughter Alice is starting a vintage dress shop called Dead Girls Dresses. Strange things have happened since the opening though. Alice has had dropped phone calls at the shop and an oddly dressed woman with her face covered visited the shop. Could it be her Aunt Biba? Then Alice’s grandfather Roger Capel dies and leaves his granddaughter all of the womens clothes from the family home and it’s a treasure trove! Trawling through these pieces and trying them on brings Alice even closer to Biba. I thoroughly enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland details in the book, from the mirrors and chequered floors of the ‘the night of..’ to an Alice themed event at the dress shop. There is a sense, as the story goes on, that we are falling further and further down a rabbit hole. I’m a sucker for fashion and vintage so Alice’s shop was a glorious pick ‘n’ mix of beautiful pieces. This was a shop I would visit and the aesthetic sounded like my study – taxidermy, a white rabbit, antique inkwells, Venetian masks and a candlestick that’s in the shape of a monkey wearing a dress are just some of my weird objects! I thought the general shabbiness of Alice’s apartment was very believable. It’s in a large house where the ground floor is uninhabitable, so they have to squeeze upstairs having no money for repairs. I thought that the author captured Alice’s naivety very well and I could easily believe she would end up in a relationship with Gabe who’s a militant climate change activist. I felt like his activism and relationship with best friend Stef came first in his life, despite professing to be madly in love with Alice. I know that once you start siding with parents in novels and films you’ve reached ‘old’, but I had the same misgivings as Karen. I thought Gabe was gaslighting Alice and making her doubt herself, I just didn’t know why. I kept wishing that Alice would have the strength to recognise and resist him.

Erin Kelly is an author I’ve read since her very first novel and she has a way of writing something utterly compelling and full of tension, but also full of unusual details. There’s the quirky references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice and funny little everyday instances, like trying to unmask the dog constantly using the opposite shop’s doorstep as a toilet. There were also those ideas about twinning, doppelgängers and mirrors that added an uncanny element to the story. Using Alice and Karen to narrate the story in alternate chapters means we can see the relationship between mother and daughter. Karen’s fears for Alice with regards to Gabe and his coercive control really amplified the tension. We see Alice’s frustration with her mum, but also her concern for her father who she believes was innocent of murder. She knows that Rex is loyal to those he loves and she starts to suspect he may have been covering for someone else. I also sensed that there was so much more to the double murder then either Rex or Karen were admitting to, especially to Alice. Possibly something to do with aunt Biba? As Biba started to overshadow Alice’s thinking and the strange calls continued I was on tenterhooks waiting for the truth to be revealed. It’s a massive shock when someone from the past does turn up, but it’s not anyone the family expected. For Karen and Rex this newcomer is an eerie reminder of his sister. They also upset the dynamic of Alice’s relationship and Gabe feels very put out when his attempts to control their role in the group fails and it looks like Alice might become influenced by someone else. I would have thought that Gabe being pushed out would be exactly what Karen wanted but strangely she seems concerned too. I kept remembering that someone in this family is a murderer and they could strike again. I also wondered what those involved might be driven to, in order to keep their secrets. As the final pages came I was still shocked by what actually happened! It’s amazing the lengths people might go to for someone they love.

Out now from Hodder & Stoughton

Meet the Author

Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Poison Tree, The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, The Ties That Bind, He Said/She Said, Stone Mothers/We Know You Know, Watch Her Fall and Broadchurch: The Novel, inspired by the mega-hit TV series. In 2013, The Poison Tree became a major ITV drama and was a Richard & Judy Summer Read in 2011. He Said/She Said spent six weeks in the top ten in both hardback and paperback, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime novel of the year award, and selected for both the Simon Mayo Radio 2 and Richard & Judy Book Clubs. She has worked as a freelance journalist since 1998 and written for the Guardian, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, New Statesman, Red, Elle and Cosmopolitan. Born in London in 1976, she lives in north London with her husband and daughters. erinkelly.co.uk twitter.com/mserinkelly