Love it or hate it, social media has inveigled itself into our lives and there’s little chance of escaping its all-encompassing reach. Take WhatsApp, for instance. Once you succumb to its charms, you’ll find yourself in group after group, each one pinging away as members share inane comments, cat memes and the occasional war plans. Even when muted, it can cast a shadow over your day.
Ask Kirby Cornell. When we first meet her, she’s working a dead-end job for a Magaluf-based holiday company that caters for singles under 30. She’s keeping her head down and trying to forget what happened 12 months ago – until an unexpected WhatsApp message arrives from Esme. Which is a tad worrying. Because Esme is dead. It’s obviously time to resurrect the chat group that fell silent a year ago, but is anyone likely to reply to Kirby’s messages?
But let’s wind back a little, and arrive in Crowhurst, a sleepy little town in Surrey that became famous after a local loner went on a killing spree 30 years ago. Kirby works as a reporter at the local weekly by day, and at night shares a crummy flat with three housemates, bickering over takeaways and whether to watch a cookery programme, a true crime doc or the Kardashians on the telly.
Life is dull and predictable, until the doorbell rings unexpectedly and in walks Esme, a social media influencer who likes to focus on cold cases and has a huge following. She lays claim to the spare room and is about to cause all kinds of trouble for the flatmates.
It soon becomes clear that the Crowhurst murders, committed in the 1990s by Peter Doyle, are on Esme’s radar. But as Kirby points out, this is no cold case. Esme has a different point of view, and soon she is partway to bringing Kirby around to her way of thinking. Then Esme vanishes, and it’s up to Kirby to get to the bottom of things. Back then, it was thought that Doyle has killed himself after going on a murder spree. Could he still be alive after all these years? Is he holding Esme captive?
Kirby tries her best to be a hotshot local reporter and find Esme. But Esme is a grown woman who could have just gone off on her own, Kirby doesn’t even know her new friend’s surname, and the newspaper that Kirby works for is about to be taken over by a bigger group that’s more interested in clicks than actual news. Meanwhile, the annual Crawe Fayre is fast approaching. It’s a kind of harvest festival come excuse for a piss up, where Jack Daw, the town mascot leads the motley parade. Back in 1996, Peter Doyle committed his killings while dressed in the creepy black costume.
Like a rickety old fairground ride, the narrative switches back and forth with alarming regularity between what happened 12 months ago, and the present day. While we slowly begin to get a picture of the events of a year ago, there’s plenty going on in the here and now, too, sparked by that mysterious WhatsApp message from ‘Esme’ that prompts Kirby to quit her dead end job and come back to Crowhurst. It’s time to get the gang back together again… but it’s not that simple, and once again the Crawe Fayre is on the horizon.
Friendship is at the centre of everything that happens here, skewed by alcohol, misdirection and good old fashioned lies. LM Chilton has a sharp ear for dialogue and uses the skill well, particularly in the scenes where Kirby and her flatmates are all together. There’s also a sense of fun in this book, although at times the comedy is a little overdone. Everyone in the Group Chat Dies is a salutary tale for those of us glued to our phones, and for the so-called influencers who will do whatever it takes to gain celebrity status. A good early contender for the poolside reading pile!
Fictional true crime also takes centre stage in Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson.
Head of Zeus
Print/Kindle/iBook
£3.99
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
