I’m playing catch up with reviews. These two novels are both by Welsh authors but I couldn’t fit them into ReadingWales’26.
Falling by Emma Kavanagh
Emma Kavanagh’s draws on her experience as a psychologist with the police service for her debut novel Falling .
It begins with a plane crash in the Black Mountains in mid Wales shortly after take off in heavy snow. Only thirteen passengers and crew members survive. Was this a case of technical failure in extreme weather or pilot error?
The novel is told from the perspective of four individuals.
Two of them are directly impacted by the crash: Cecilia, a stewardess who steered many of the survivors to safety and Freya whose pilot father Oliver, perished in the crash.
The other two figures are Jim, the father of young police officer whose body is discovered dumped on a riverbank, and Tom ,the lead police investigator assigned to the case.
The backstories of these individuals are revealed as the narrative shifts from one to another over the course of a week. They’re all struggling (falling) in one way or another. Jim is wracked with grief about his daughter’s death. Cecilia feels guilty that she can’t show motherly love towards her young son. Tom is worn down by a loveless marriage. Freya knows her father was no saint but she can’t help shake of fears he might have been a killer.
Four principal characters. Two mysteries. It’s a lot to pack into one novel. Maybe too ambitious for a debut novel? I did read to the end but without any clear idea what the author was trying to achieve.
Those who Know by Alis Hawkins
Those who Know is the third title in the Teifi Valley Coroner series set in in 19th century West Wales.
Acting Coroner Harry Probert Lloyd and his young steward John are once more called upon to investigate a suspicious death. Instead of focusing on his campaign to secure the permanent position as Coroner, Harry has to travel deep into the Teifi Valley to pursue inquiries about the death of a village schoolmaster.
As in the previous books, the novel contains a wealth of information about life in this area of Wales where the class system and the church operate to keep people in their place. There’s added commentary on the state of the education system in the mid 1840s.
I’ve enjoyed the previous two novels, particularly seeing how the characters of Harry and John have deepened. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for Those Who Know but it seemed to take a long time to really get underway. Unusually for Alis Hawkins, her historical detail wasn’t as fully woven into the narrative as it could have been — there were a few moments in the first half of the book where I felt I was getting too much of a history lesson. Nevertheless this is a carefully plotted novel with plenty of surprising but satisfying twists.