by Carly Rheilan
Rating: *****
After serving fourteen years in prison for the murder of a little girl, Ralph Sneddon is under no illusions that he is a complete outcast, rightly loathed, and regarded as a depraved monster even by his mother, Verity. Some crimes are unforgivable, no matter the passage of time, and Ralph’s is one of them.
But seven-year-old Mary Crouch knows none of this when she chances upon him while chasing an injured cat. Ralph knows how his friendship with Mary will be viewed, but he tells himself that Mary’s just a little friend, she’s not like the other child, she’s just a friend…
I had been cautioned that Rheilan’s psychological thriller, A Cat’s Cradle, is incredibly disturbing and it is. Nonetheless, personally, it’s one of the best and most unusual novels in the genre that I have read.
Be warned, Rheilan sugarcoats no aspect of this story. However, there is a precise, lightness of touch to her exquisitely good prose, and the narrative is unfolded with such a delicacy of perception, that it hooks the reader with grim, addictive compulsion from the first page.
The story is told mainly from Ralph and Mary’s close third-person points of view, although the reader is also privy to Janet, Mary’s mum’s perspective.
Rheilan sets the scene, literally and figuratively, layer by creeping layer. Every main character plays a role in what happens to Mary, although none comprehend it. The only person who occasionally feels a lurking sense of dread is her eldest brother, Colin, but he doesn’t know why.
Mary is a bright, inquisitive child, who is also lonely and vulnerable although she doesn’t recognize herself as such. Bullied by her two brothers, Colin and Michael, especially Michael, she is a misfit at school, having recently moved to just outside a small village, and, therefore, regarded as an outsider.
Rheilan paints the village and its inhabitants as almost incestuous, the majority have one of only four surnames and there is an unwelcome, suspicious atmosphere for the Crouches, especially as Richard, Mary’s father, has walked out on the family.
Indeed, Rheilan sets her novel in the summer of 1962 when the disappearance of Richard is a subject of malicious, sneering gossip. Janet is completely preoccupied with the family’s lack of money since Richard left and the villagers’ derision of her.
She is oblivious to where her children go when she sends them outside to play and fails to realise that her two sons are leaving Mary by herself for hours. It is a not-unusual scenario for the age, and Rheilan perfectly mines the lack of awareness.
Janet begins the novel as a sympathetic figure, her domestic dramas and anxieties are keenly observed and initially provide the reader with an absorbing distraction from Ralph’s insidious grooming of Mary. Yet, when interests converge, her misreading and dismissal of subtle yet unmistakable signals that something is wrong with her daughter are agonizingly infuriating.
Rheilan skilfully utililises the rural topography with its quiet, remote fields and dense foliage to ominous effect despite its contrasting natural beauty. Every single detail in A Cat’s Cradle has meaning and motif, even when seemingly innocuous they suddenly take on sinister life.
Still, it’s the voices of the two protagonists that inhabit the reader’s head and set this novel apart from others of its ilk. Rheilan’s portrayal of Mary is heartbreakingly convincing. The seven-year-old’s stuttering thought processes, sweetly imaginative flights of fancy, and anxious confusion, not just toward Ralph, are wrought with harrowing brilliance and loaded with sharp, dramatic irony.
Ralph has a childlike aspect to him which chimes horribly with Mary. Notwithstanding, he is an arch-manipulator who is fully aware of his vile intent, regardless of his internal arguments to the contrary, and, as events progress, his overriding emotions are ones of self-gratification and preservation, although the latter becomes tested.
It could be levelled that the ending is not truly satisfactory. Still, it’s a story that would never have a good conclusion, no matter the outcome, so it’s unfortunately realistic.
A Cat’s Cradle is a brilliantly chilling and darkly compelling masterpiece of courage and conviction. Highly recommended.
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