It’s been almost a decade since we last heard from Elizabeth is Missing author Emma Healey, and just like any good personal trainer, she likes to keep you on your toes.
A strange analogy, perhaps, for a writer who leapt to fame with a debut novel about an elderly woman living with dementia. But Healey is not one to stay in lane, and with her second book Whistle in the Dark she got inside the head of a disturbed teenager. That was nine years ago – and now she’s back with Sweat, a disturbing psychological thriller.
Much of the action takes place in a London gym, and centres upon Cassie, a personal trainer who has recently escaped, not entirely unscathed, from a controlling and obsessive relationship. At the gym she is in control, working her own body and those of her clients. It’s been hard, but Cassie is slowly becoming her own woman again – until a new arrival threatens to shatter that freshly-fledged confidence.
Recently, the outspoken owner of the chain of gyms where Cassie works came close to being cancelled after making a decidedly non-PC statement about disabled people. As recompense, and to stem the media backlash, he offers 12 weeks of half-price personal training sessions to people with a range of disabilities.
And that’s what brings Liam to the gym. Yes, that’s Liam, who made Cassie’s life a living hell; the man she ran away from and hoped never to see again. Liam, who now claims to be blind.
Thus begins a two-pronged story that ebbs and flows between the here and now and Cassie’s darkest days with Liam. The readers are soon piecing together a disturbing picture of a dysfunctional relationship that, to outsiders, appeared all hearts and flowers – but in reality was anything but. Cassie got away back then. Can it be right that she is contemplating taking her revenge?
There are so many questions posed in Sweat, and not all of them are answered adequately. Can Cassie justify taking things out on a man who is at his lowest ebb? Is Liam really as blind as he claims to be? Are we getting the whole picture of their toxic relationship? Should either of them be trusted? Suffice to say that this isn’t a novel where you can just settle down and go with the flow. It is spiky, unpredictable and sometimes downright annoying – one of those books you may have to put down and walk away from, just to stop yourself from shouting out in frustration.
As evidenced in her previous books, Healey is great at creating claustrophobic little worlds for her characters to inhabit. This time the gym is a key setting, and it is so well drawn that you can almost hear the feet pounding the treadmills and the clanging and banging of weights apparatus, and smell that heady mix of deodorant, testosterone and, unsurprisingly, sweat. Even when the action moves out of the exercise room, that closed-in feeling never really fades.
The chapters describing Cassie’s earlier relationship with Liam are moving and terrifying in equal measure – and you’ll probably be looking at both food and exercise through a different lens after reading this one. The downside for me is that Cassie isn’t really that likeable and at times I struggled to stay in her corner.
That said, once more Emma Healey has produced a book that’s quite different from many other crime offerings out there. It is painted with a limited palate, but offers nuance, light and darkness all the same. Plus, I think it may be a forerunner in a completely new crime fiction sub-genre. What to call it? Gym noir, perhaps? Suggestions on a postcard…
Emma Healey talks about her debut novel and her inspirations here.
Hutchinson Heinemann
Print/Kindle/iBook
£8.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
