Paddy Richardson
No One Will Know by Rose Carlyle (Text Publishing, 2024), 384pp, $38
I’m an addictive reader with a five book at least a week habit, and I’m very frequently drawn into a crime fiction binge. I adore crime fiction for the disruption, the twists, the startles, the misrepresentations, and the intermittent surges of adrenaline. My own preference amongst the vast quantity of books and variability that crime fiction offers, lies with the psychological interest and social comment. I’m far more interested in why one character has murdered, tortured, or tormented another, rather than in how it was done. And I do like an undertone of seriousness that provides depth and insight into the social setting of the novel.
Rose Carlyle’s first novel, The Girl in the Mirror, engendered bidding wars amongst both UK and USA publishers. It has been translated into at least four languages and signed up for an international film deal. No One Will Know is Carlyle’s second novel.
In the opening chapters of No One Will Know, Eve Sylvester, the protagonist, survives a serious car accident which kills her boyfriend, Xander, putting an end to the plans they had made together and leaving her alone and pregnant. His affluent family, who had anticipated Xander marrying a young woman they saw as more suitable, mistrust Eve when she tells them she is pregnant and they dismiss her as a fraud. Eve, without money, a place to live, or family to support her, visits Xander’s grave where she is approached by a woman, Zelde, who offers help. Zelde’s employers who live on a secluded Tasmanian island require a nanny. Eve’s pregnancy will not be a difficulty.
A Cinderella solution. Why would Eve turn down such an opportunity? She is transported to the island; the mansion where the Hygates live is breathtaking; the summer house which will be Eve’s home is perfect. Paradise Bay is utopian, and Julia and Christopher Hygate are pleasant and welcoming.
Of course, nothing is quite as it seems. The first inkling that Paradise Island may be less than paradisical is the presence of surly and menacing Joseph who takes Eve to the island on a yacht. Then there is Zelde, the fairy godmother responsible for recruiting Eve who appears to have transformed overnight from kindly to bossy and downright nasty. Eve can overlook these small disruptions to what she sees as the pleasant and stable life spreading before her and her unborn child, but then the next bombshell hits. Julia and Christopher don’t want her to look after their child; they actually don’t have one. What they want is her baby. In return, she will receive a substantial sum of money and be able to stay on and care for her child. As the child’s nanny.
As Eve considers their request, this draws us into one of the psychologically and ethically interesting aspects of the novel. The Hygates tell her that Julia has suffered a serious miscarriage, and they are desperate for a child who they will raise with every advantage they can provide. Not only that, but their child will inherit a fortune from Julia’s side of the family. How can Eve possibly compete? What is better for her own child? A life of stability, good education and opportunity or living with a penniless single mother? Eve herself has grown up with instability and reliance on foster care. She wants better for her own child.
Eventually Eve says yes, which leads to further secrecy and subterfuge. Since any child who inherits from Julia’s grandmother’s fortune must be ‘blood’, Julia will fake a pregnancy while Eve’s pregnancy will be hidden. At the time of delivery, Eve’s baby will be presented as Julia’s. Eve will then assume the role of nanny.
What follows is a rollicking, fast-moving, tension-filled narrative with twists and turns galore and nothing and nobody being as they are first portrayed. Eve’s pregnancy, her position as nanny to her own child, and her changing relationship with the Hygates veer very far from plain sailing. Julia and Christopher are not the benign and supportive couple they have appeared to be, nor do their revealed circumstances suggest they will provide a stable life for Eve’s child, Alec. Eve is thrust into highly dramatic situations, some life-threatening. It’s impossible to reveal all since that would ruin the surprises that arise regularly within the plot, but while a successful crime novel does require twists, I couldn’t help but wonder whether there were rather too many and why some demanded quite so much from the reader in terms of suspension of disbelief.
For example, although it is understandable that Eve lives in the lighthouse for the duration of her pregnancy, which must be hidden, she is alone and without any means of communication. Is that believable, especially in terms of the Hygates requiring her baby to be healthy and safe? Similarly, wouldn’t Eve be just a little suspicious of the theatricality of Granny’s visit and Julia’s pretense at a sham pregnancy?
Related to that is Eve herself, who is naïve and trusting almost to the point of disbelief, who creates the most incredible predicaments for herself, but, at the same time, is courageous, resilient, and well-meaning. Her background is one of loss and uncertainty, and I wondered if that had generated her unquestioning and eager-to-please personality. Perhaps more details of her past could have enriched our understanding of her character, though Carlyle does effectively demonstrate, through Eve’s acquiescence to the Hygates, how wealth may create power and authority.
Eve, fortunately, does grow in assertiveness and resourcefulness over the course of the novel, and, ultimately, I was convinced by her commitment to motherhood and her determination to care for and protect her son. When she comes to understand that the Hygates’ opulent life-style of yachts, island and mansion is, in fact, paid for by organised crime, she is determined that she must remove her son from their guardianship. Organised crime, which in this case, involves the smuggling of Harlequin geckos, is an intriguing aspect of the novel. Carlyle, in a recent interview, explained that this was inspired by her reading about the arrest of a man trying to leave New Zealand with 45 live geckos hidden in his underwear. This led to her researching animal smuggling, where rare and beautiful animals are sold at enormous sums to exotic pet collectors on the black market.
The novel is cleverly structured: part one sets up the situation with Eve’s devastating loss, her offer of employment and the decision she makes to give her baby to the Hygates; part two moves forward five months and consolidates Eve’s position with her giving birth and subsequently regretting her decision, but being powerless to change it; part three is set six years later, but also delves into the past where the Hygates’ duplicity is revealed. While the movement between past and present and among characters and settings is challenging, the level of interest and intrigue created through character and narrative is enough to urge the reader on and I was impressed with Carlyle’s skill in disclosing the Hygates’ past, both a revelation and an answer to questions built up over the course of the novel.
I enjoyed the novel’s descriptions, too: the harlequin lizard, whose ‘pink scales were adorned with diamond-shaped patches of green … its reptilian eyes gleamed with reflected fire’. Then there’s the account of the environs of the lighthouse, where ‘The quiet sweep of water is surrounded by white cliffs, as though nature built an open-air cathedral in her own honour’, and ‘The bush is so green it almost throbs.’ An experienced sailor, Carlyle has crewed on yachting expeditions and sailed her own yacht from Thailand to South Africa. Her obvious passion for and knowledge of the sea and sailing is a lovely feature of the novel. Eve teaching Alec about sailing is both convincing and eloquent:
Don’t think about it. Feel it. The tiller’s joined to the rudder, which pokes out under the yacht like an oar. The ocean is humming to you through the wood. Remember, wood used to be a tree, so it’s still kind of alive. Notice the breeze on your face and watch it dancing across the water. Soon, you’ll feel the sea’s music, the way they say deaf people feel a song.
Disruptions, twists, startles, misrepresentations, intermittent surges of adrenaline? Oh, yes. As for my preference for my crime novels to offer me psychological interest and social comment? Yes, again.
PADDY RICHARDSON is the author of two collections of short stories and nine novels. She lives in Dunedin.
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