The Little Friend - Donna Tart (E)

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Little John
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The Little Friend - Donna Tart (E)

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I wasn't sure about this book at first. Its quite a large book 555 pages of dense small type, 7 very long chapters and the style - in the beginning at least - was like something from Gone with the Wind.

In fact, it wasn't until quite a long way into the book that I realised "when" we were. In the end, and just so you don't spend time worrying about it, the book starts in the 1950s with the murder of 10 year old Robin Cleve. Although hung by the neck from a tree in his own garden, the murderer is never found and the family itself dies a bit in the process.

Robin's father leaves home to live in another city and his mother takes to her bed and just gives up. The house is a mess and the home is held together by the underpaid black housemaid, Ida. Robin's sister Allison was only 3 years old when he was murdered and may have seen something that she refuses to try to remember. Harriet, the younger sister and the main heroin of the book, was just a baby and has no memory of her brother other than stories that she has been told by her many aunts and her Grandmother, Edie.

The story proper starts some 12 years after the death when Harriet is 12 years old. She is a bit of a tomboy and together with her best friend and confident, Hely, they get up to all sorts of pranks - some of them positively dangerous. Harriet comes to hear about a family of criminals called Ratliff and decides that Danny Ratliff was more than likely her brother's murderer. Her determination to get revenge is shocking and pitiless but nevertheless, actually quite nail-biting.

As I said, the style seemed a bit dry at first and it wasn't until the first unexpected but very pleasantly received bit of humour did I really start to appreciate the book. But then the characters started to come to life and began to interact and the book ended up to be quite a page turner.

If like me you find the first chapter or so a bit hard going, please gon't give up. Its an excellent book. Very well written with lots of descriptive prose and wonderful characters the likes of which you may not have seen since To Kill a Mockingbird.
Yes this is the real "Little John" (or it could be "colin")
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