Review by Booklist Review
There are episodes in life that one can pinpoint as "before" and "after" markers. For teen siblings Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang, their shared transformative moment came on a walk home from school. Zoe was the first to notice a flash of red, which turned out to be blood running down the legs of a boy not much older than herself, who lay wounded in a farmer's field. Demonstrating resolve and resourcefulness, Duncan summons help and the boy survives his murderous attack. But who would do such a thing in this quiet spot, mere miles from the University of Oxford campus. Everyone knows everyone else, right? As Matthew employs critical thinking and heightened inquisitiveness to find the assailant, Zoe channels her new assessment of life's capriciousness into an affair with an American graduate student much her elder. Duncan, who was adopted as a baby, takes cues from curious dreams to track down his birth mother. By looking both inward and outward in the face of this disturbing crime, each sibling notices new things about themselves and their family, some with unsettling consequences. Every character rings true; every observation and reaction feels real. Braiding three separate views of the same incident, Livesey (Mercury, 2016) weaves a masterful tapestry of emotion and action focused on the indelible impact of random events.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Livesey (Mercury) serves up a distinctive blend of literary fiction and psychological thriller. It's nearing the end of 1999 when teenaged sibling Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang spot a boy, beaten and unconscious, in the outskirts of Oxford, England, after their father, Hal, fails to pick them up from school. The paramedics arrive and take the boy away in an ambulance, and the children rush home, realizing "something enormous" has happened. The event brings their statuses in the family into stark relief. Duncan, having been sent by his siblings to call for help, reckons with the "inevitability of being the youngest." Matthew, the oldest, enamored by the heroes and villains of crime novels, wants to know who did it and why. Zoe follows men in Oxford streets, wondering if they were the perpetrators, and experiences a rude sexual awakening along the way ("You're a hot little thing, aren't you?" one says to her). Duncan, who's adopted, believes finding information about the victim will help him in the search for his biological mother. Hal and his wife, Betsy, support their pursuits, which eventually drive the couple apart. Precise prose, cool observation, and tight pacing will keep readers turning the pages. This is a memorable twist on the coming-of-age tale. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In 1999, three British teenage siblings on their way home from school find an injured youth lying in a field. Significantly, the boy whispers a word, but all three hear something different. Matthew, the eldest, takes it upon himself to continue to investigate the incident, contacting the victim's odd brother and trying to offer the detective additional "clues." Zoe discovers her budding sexuality and pursues a relationship with an Oxford student. Aspiring artist Duncan adopts a dog and decides to find his birth mother. During their varying pursuits, all three learn a family secret involving their parents. While avoiding many stereotypical tropes, Livesey (Mercury) deftly portrays the rich inner lives of adolescents. In unique ways, each sibling uses the incident that opens the novel as a jumping-off point for self-discovery. Though their involvement in the crime was relatively minor, each makes it "about them," as teenagers are wont to do. VERDICT There are perhaps a few too many coincidences in an attempt to tie up loose ends, but Livesey does well by her teenage protagonists while offering a vivid portrait of life among intellectuals in an Oxford-vicinity village.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A random act of violence opens vistas into the vagaries of fate and the complexity of human experience for three teenagers. Walking home from school in a town near Oxford, Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang spot a boy lying in an adjacent field, wearing "what appeared to be long red socks." This is a characteristic Livesey description, subtle, with a lurking sting: The socks are trails of blood. Karel Lustig, the siblings learn later, has been stabbed and left there by a stranger who picked him up hitchhiking home from work. Each of the trio deals with this unsettling event differently. Eldest Matthew, haunted by memories of a childhood friend abused by her father, avidly follows the police investigation, but a meeting with Karel's older brother shows him the case also involves a complicated family dynamic. Middle child Zoe learns that their father is having an affair and starts one of her own with an American Ph.D. student; unpredictably (as plot twists often are in Livesey's work), this proves to be a good thing. Thirteen-year-old Duncan, adopted as an infant, decides he needs to find his birth mother--"first mother" he is careful to call her when broaching the subject with his adoptive mother, whom he loves greatly. Family bonds are fraught, fragile, yet ultimately enduring in Livesey's nuanced account of the siblings' separate but conjoined odysseys, counterpointed by piercing glimpses of Karel, who confesses to Duncan that sometimes he wishes they hadn't rescued him. The reasons for his wish are among the many motives that simmer beneath the text without rising to the surface; Livesey demonstrates the same respect for the mysteries of the human heart that enriched such previous novels as Eva Moves the Furniture (2001) and Banishing Verona (2004). (The discovery of Karel's assailant, for example, explains almost nothing.) We can discern her literary credo in a discovery she gives to Duncan, a talented artist who realizes that the only way to truly draw anything or anyone is to simply look rather than imposing meaning. Quietly yet powerfully affecting. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
