Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us (HarperCollins) opens not with a crime, but with news of an arrest. A serial killer who terrorised south London for decades has been caught, and Isabel, one of his victims many years ago, has been told of the arrest. “He’s called Nigel,” she says, sardonically, to her former partner, Edward, who was in bed beside her when their home was invaded by the killer. “What were you expecting? Adolf?” he answers.
Dean previously told the story of a daughter’s escape from the family home where her father had chained her up, in Girl A, and of a school shooting in Day One, both excellent and disturbing novels. She is out this time to explore a series of sadistic crimes, but also the impact they have had on the survivors. A love story too, that of Isabel and Edward, who meet as students. But how does any romance survive after the violence and cruelty of what they go through? Dean cleverly weaves together past and present for maximum impact, moving from the courtroom where a series of victims are explaining how Nigel Wood ripped their lives apart, to the burgeoning lives of Isabel and Edward inching inexorably towards their meeting with a killer. This is a classy, elegant thriller – just like its protagonist, the enjoyably prickly Isabel.
