The Earthquake Bird: a novel of mystery
Susanna Jones Picador, 212pp, £12.99
ISBN 0330485016
There is something strange about Lucy Fly, or so she is told - something colder, more distant than the norm. Arrested by two Tokyo policemen for the murder of her close friend Lily Bridges, she plays with her interrogators, coolly keeping up the pretence of not being able to speak Japanese, pleased at her greater intelligence. That she is different is not in dispute. Escaping from a grim childhood near Hull, during which she accidentally killed her brother and became mute for three years, she is in exile in Japan. "Plants and trees have roots. People have legs," she says.
But perhaps even she doesn't realise how strange she is. For a start, anyone who claims to love earthquakes is one connection short of a circuit. In an earthquake, the world suddenly slides sideways, squirming beneath you, leaving you literally nothing to hang on to. This, in a way, is how Lucy experiences Japan. Under interrogation by the police, the truth about her slowly emerges, even if her questioners are told nothing. Rather, it is we, the readers, who have access to her thoughts and memories, as we learn of Lily's affair with Lucy's boyfriend, Teiji, and of how Lucy was the last person to see Lily alive.
Initially, a dismembered corpse is wrongly assumed by the police to be Lily. So do we take Lucy's denial of this murder at face value, especially when Lily is found strangled and shoved into a shed, minutes from Lucy's home? As Lucy plays with the police, so she plays with us. But, "No, I didn't kill Lily," she eventually concedes. "Lucy is innocent of murder." Later, she realises who did - and who is creeping around outside her house, lying in wait for her.
I found Lucy's childhood moving and the growing suspicions and realisation of Lily and Teiji's affair persuasively evoked, as is the feel of Japan. The constant moving between the first and third person is a technical irritation, but this is merely a minor quibble about what is, after all, a fine first novel.
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