THE WRECKER'S GIRL by S K Tremayne

5* Despite a slightly slow, dull and boring start, this turned out to be an excellent, if sad, tale.

This is a book whose blurb doesn't do it justice, nor does the creepy prologue. Emma doesn't appear in the tale beyond the prologue and you don't find out about the history of the corpse in the prologue with the child's shoe until maybe 85% of the tale. It's a sad history that caused an even sadder tragedy, a history that wouldn't have made anyone bat an eyelid in 2025. But, it provided an excellent storyline to the tale, and boy were Karenza's forensics skills and sleuthing good. 

This tale is that of Karenza, who's trying to help 2 troubled bereaved children, the Tyacks. She lost her daughter Maggie, aged 10, who sleepwalked out of their house the one night Karenza and her husband didn't lock there front door, following which her marriage broke up. She feels empathy with both kids who are clearly troubled, not just by their loss, but by guilt, feelings of resentment of each other, and because of the strange house they live in. A house that the Tyack family cannot ever sell because of its history and how people made their money, and more. A house that has no effect on the daughter but seems to haunt the son and his father, and uncle, and more, as we learn.

Cornish lore and history aid this tale, and Karenza has her work cut out. The house scares her. The adult Tyack male scares her for a different reason. The cellar scares her. The terrified cleaner is scared by both the house and inhabitants. Maybe even the kids scare her at times. Is the house haunted? Are the Tyacks cursed? Maybe, and if so, sadly for good reason. But, there's no perfect solution, although Karenza solves the mystery of Natalie Tyack's...death? Suicide? Tragic accident? There's a lot, but it's revealed in manageable and believable drips and drabs. When Karenza's connection to the Tyacks is revealed, she begins to understand what the 'haunting' could be, and why it's affecting only certain family members. She sleuths, comes to a couple of right-but-also-wrong/ish conclusions before the truth outs and she nearly meets the same fate as Natalie Tyack.

There's a lot more to the tale, not of it all original, but even if bits are borrowed, they're well dovetailed. The ending is sad-sweet for Karenza in a way I hadn't imagined, but, I think, also healing. And it made me think that death isn't the end we think it is. This is a really good book, so persist. 

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, for my reading pleasure.


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