She Treads Softly: Safe and Sound

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Safe and Sound

Safe and Sound by Philippa East
2/18/21; 352 pages
HarperCollins

Safe and Sound by Philippa East is a highly recommended psychological thriller.

Jennifer (Jenn) Arden is a housing manager who needs to evict a tenant for nonpayment of rent. When Jenn and the bailiffs can't get any response and see a pile of mail piled up inside the door, the police are called. They open the door, discovering the body of 26 year-old Sarah Jones inside. Apparently Sarah died some 10 months earlier and no one reported her missing or requested a wellness check on her. The discovery shocks Jenn and sets her on a quest to find out more about Sarah and track down people who knew her. At the same time Jenn is in a fragile state dealing with issues of her own. She has anxiety issues, constantly worries over her son, Charlie, and is trying to overcome something in her past.

This psychological thriller features an unreliable narrator with a secret who is trying to discover more information about a woman who may also be an unreliable narrator with a secret. An alternating plot thread follows two young girls who are cousins, Prin and Jane, whose connection to Jenn's present day search is explained much later. All the characters are presented as individuals with complicated pasts as more details are slowly disclosed in the plot. Jenn experiences growth as a character as she tackles her problems and the search for information about Sarah.

The plot of Safe and Sound does move at a slow pace which serves to highlight the fragile mental state of Jenn and increases the tension as new discoveries are made or new information about the past is revealed. Jenn keeps to her search with tenacity and determination, even as her own health may be in jeopardy. The alternating chapters between the two girls and Jenn's present search help increase the tension and drama in both storylines. The final denouement provides a satisfying, emotional conclusion.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.