Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens by Publisher

Fiction Book Review

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where the Crawdads Sing

Imagine yourself as a 6-year-old living in a remote place with four siblings, a mother and a drunken, abusive father. Then imagine life after your mother has had enough and walks away in her high heels never to be seen again? Your siblings take this as a cue to leave too, even the youngest brother who you love the most. Then imagine trying to live and eat and cook for that drunken father, who, by the time you are seven also leaves and doesn’t return?

That is the lot of Kya Clark. Through necessity she learns to survive alone in the marsh near the small town of Barkley Cove in North Carolina. When the money runs out to buy grits to eat, she digs for mussels and sells those to buy food and petrol for her boat. There are very few people in her life and even less that she trusts. She survives one day at school, but humiliated by the children, never goes back. When she meets Tate, a friend of her brother, there is a glimmer of light in her life. Tate teaches her to read and her life is opened up to learning more about the world, and in particular, the marsh. She learns to identify the birds and plants that she loves and to study them in detail. She also opens up to loving and trusting someone again.

But normal life is not for Kya. The more she yearns for companionship and to live a normal life the more it eludes her. She is isolated – an outcast from society – and she learns the only person she can trust is herself.

This may sound sad and desolate, and many parts of it are, but it opens up an intriguing world of detail about the marsh lands, while unfolding, through a series of flashbacks, the equally intriguing mystery of the murder of a young man, Chase Andrews - the pride of Barkley Cove.

(A crawdad, by the way, is a crayfish. Did you know they can sing?)

Why wait?

If you enjoy mystery or detective fiction, try some of these from our e-book collection:

The Mayfair Mystery: 2835 Mayfair (Detective Club Crime Classics). Frank Richardson The first in a new series of classic detective stories from the vaults of HarperCollins involves a disappearing corpse, a supernatural theory, and a genuinely shocking finale.

The Good Teacher. Rachel Sargeant Some people deserve to be taught a lesson... A gripping detective mystery with a shocking twist, from the Top Ten Kindle bestselling author of The Perfect Neighbours. This riveting story about a murdered teacher is perfect for fans of Faith Martin and L. J. Ross.

A Going Concern. Catherine Aird A bizarre clause in an elderly woman's will exposes a dirty secret-and a murder-in this "intricate, witty, and thoroughly delightful" mystery.

The Drowned Detective. Neil Jordan The chilling new novel from the Oscar-winning novelist and film director blends crime and romance in a haunting love story.

Whistle in the Dark. Emma Healey In the award-winning Elizabeth is Missing debut novelist Emma Healey explored grandmother Maud's attempt to solve an 70-year-old mystery as she succumbed to dementia.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Mark HaddonThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.