Product Description

When Kit goes to a dance class she is hoping simply to take her mind off her studies. Soon it looks like Joe, a stranger she meets there, might do more than that. But when Kit uncovers a mystery involving the young Charles Dickens and the slaughter of a prostitute known as The Countess, she is sucked back in to the world of books, and discovers how Dickens became tangled up with this horrendous crime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68842 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review
An enjoyable and gripping read.
--Mslexia

Gowers's writing is absolutely beautiful. --The Times

Singularly convincing and genuinely moving. --Independent on Sunday

A genuinely puzzling historical murder mystery linking Dickens to the gruesome murder of a prostitute . . . Fresh, clever and very funny. --Guardian

Gowers is a genius.
--SCARLETT THOMAS

Review
A dark delight of a novel.

Review
Aharp, acute, comic and true to life.

Customer Reviews

Curled if not twisted
I read and enjoyed Rebecca Gowers' first book, When to Walk, so was thrilled when I discovered her second, The Twisted Heart was one of the two books I received for making it to the short list of the "First Prime" short fiction competition.

Both of Gowers' novels take as their theme the trials and difficulties of modern love and in both she gives her story zing by creating characters which teeter on the border of normality. They're believable but distorted, the kind of people you can imagine meeting in the pub and never forgetting. The Twisted Heart features Kit, a post grad researching the murder of a Victorian prostitute. She believes the death is linked in some way to Dickens' fictional account of the death of Nancy in Oliver Twist (hence the title), but can't explain why Nancy's death appears to preface the real life murder. At the same time, Kit becomes involved with Joe, a Maths professor whose own life is far from straightforward. His brother Humpty is in a precarious state of mental health and has some very dodgy friends. Kit has to decide if Joe's defensiveness is just that of an older brother, or if he has other secrets to hide.

The plot resolution is no big surprise, but Gowers has a lovely, light style which carries the reader along. She has a gift for capturing the awkward moments of a relationship in its early days, those disjointed conversations where we nearly, but never quite, say exactly what we mean. She also writes her characters with affection, so we care about them and want them to be happy. And when they are, in the end, we smile.

It was good, but...
Okay, this is a novel essentially with three strands of plot. Two of them probably share the main stage, with the other being the subplot.

Main plot one: the literary mystery.
One of the main characters, Kit, is a DPhil student studying in Oxford for her thesis on Victorian Detectives. She is also tutoring one student, Orson, an American, and focuses his attentions on Dickens. As she researches, she stumbles upon a real unsolved murder from the 1830s. As she is already aware of Dickens she sees a link between Dickens and this real case. I won't say any more as this will give too much away.

Main plot two: the 'tale of modern love' as indicated on the cover.
Work-obsessed Kit decides to start dancing classes. Here she meets Joe, a Maths Lecturer at the University. By the end of the novel, it is possible to see signs of love, but I never found it a full-blown romance. Joe is very reticent about himself and as the book progresses you realise much of this is to do with his family, which brings us to the sub-plot.

Subplot: Joe's brother.
Joe has a brother called Edward, known as Humpty, because "when he was little, he was fat". Yes, the egg jokes are here as well. Humpty is a strange character and it's not until the end that you understand why. However, Humpty's story cannot really be described here because, again, it may give too much away.


The strengths:
* The literary mystery is enjoyable and interesting. It's very clear that the author has done plenty of research and she says that the evidence is factual - so you could always follow her footsteps, if you fancied it. However, a word to note, I think in this day and age a lot of people expect startling revelations, this is not what happens. It's an interesting revelation, but don't expect mind-blowing.

* It is a very quick read. I was surprised to finish it in an evening. Despite the weaknesses, I did feel compelled to continue until the end.

* Coming from the Oxford area, it was good to be able to visualise the roads etc. described here.

* It's fairly well-written.


The weaknesses:
* I must have been in and out of the 'dimwit' mode. I found that I understand both the literary and occasional mathematical theories. However, some of the basic conversation or Kit's thoughts had me very confused, to the extent that I had to re-read passages three or four times. This may be me, but this was an occurrence throughout the book. Sometimes, I worked out what was actually meant, but other times I had to let it go. I think this is why I found it only fairly well-written.

* The main character, Kit, was work-obsessed. Fine, I could understand that. She had little romantic history. Fine, could understand that as well. However, she came across as completely socially and emotionally inept; so disconnected from anything. Occasionally, this was endearing, but regularly I found a bit too uncomfortable.

* I still don't know what to make of the characters. I cannot tell you whether I actually liked any of them. Occasionally, I felt empathy for Kit and Joe, but most of the time, I didn't feel any form of connection to them. I didn't care what happened to them. I found it very difficult to believe their love story. Kit was too engrossed in her work and regularly commented how boring she found other people's lives, so she always forgot to ask strangers about themselves. She wasn't interested in others. At the beginning, she kept commenting that she was lonely, but I just couldn't feel that this relationship would have happened.

* Most of the other characters had similar personalities; they were all 'eccentric', but that isn't really the word. What I essentially mean by this is that when they were talking they all came across as one type and I didn't feel any of them were particularly likeable. As I mentioned before, some of the conversations didn't make complete sense, so this exacerbated this factor.

* One of the things that I felt was poor was the characters/plotlines that served a temporary purpose for the main part but was dealt with badly. It felt very contrived at times. The first example is Kit's teaching part. Throughout the first half, this role was a constant presence. Then, Kit meets with Orson, who says he wants to be a writer and can Kit read his manuscript. They leave it with Kit handing over a reading list for the following week. Orson is barely mentioned in the next quarter of the book. That is, until someone asks Kit how's the teaching going. To which she essentially replies, Orson's gone back to America, he's not finishing his course and he still wants her to read the manuscript. What? There is no preparation for this. It felt very much as if this storyline line was introduced and was useful to begin Kit's story of research and Dickens, but when that was established, the author had no idea what to do with Orson. This was poorly done.

The second example is Kit's flatmate, Michaela. She serves some sort of purpose, willing Kit to go out and date Joe. Then all of a sudden, she thinks Joe's bad for her and just yells at Kit all the time (for a reason you later find out). However, I just thinking, why is this character here?

* I couldn't always tell if something was meant to be funny or not. Some jokes were obvious, other less. For instance, Joe made one or two comments about Kit's inexperience and seemed to basically say that she wasn't good in bed, but he "has hopes". Huh? If this was meant to be funny, then it wasn't. If he was telling the truth, then I think this was cruel and given what Kit was like, very damaging.

Would I recommend it?
Even now, I don't know what to make out of the book. I liked the literary mystery part and there were times when one or two parts were funny. It's a good idea and on the whole, executed well. For this idea, I'd happily give four stars.

However, three stars are given because too many characters were dislikeable and some characters/situations were too uncomfortable. I felt that I never connected with any of them, which is a first for me. The main storylines were completed, but some of the smaller ones were incomplete or 'fixed' with no logical path, and so many were contrived.

The novel has a decent idea behind it, but I recommend getting it from a library. Don't buy it unless you like it.

Not such a good second novel
This author's book 'When to walk' was quite hilarious but this one is so dull it is hard to imagine it is by the same author. The 'revelation' about Dickens, which the reader eagerly awaits, comes across as a real anticlimax. Whereas 'When to walk' was an original book and quite well written, this one seems more like over-hyped chick-lit.