Stories about settling old scores thrive in the thriller genre, and in literature generally. As humans, we are hard-wired to feel revenge—it’s a primal emotion arising from a place of pain and suffering. There’s an element of proportionality involved, a sense of wanting to restore balance by meting out an equal level of suffering to the person responsible for causing this pain. Fantasising about how we will ‘get our own back’ on someone who has wronged us activates the brain’s reward center and offers a degree of relief from the intensity of our emotions. This ‘relief’ is, of course, illusory. By focussing on revenge, all we’re really doing is keeping the emotional wound open. Rarely does it bring about the cathartic closure we crave.
There are two kinds of revenge: the immediate, knee-jerk retaliation and the long-simmering variety that can become an obsession and which is particularly corrosive and vindictive. It’s no surprise then that it’s this second type that so often finds its way into crime fiction. It is, however, one of those themes that never seems to get stale. After all, there are so many different ways people can hurt each other, and coming up with devious and premeditated plans to settle old scores or avenge an offense is like catnip to a crime writer.
My first three books have all dealt with this theme in one way or another. In The Rumor, loosely inspired by the real-life case of Mary Bell who killed two little boys when she was ten, I wanted to explore how the families of victims often feel that justice has not been done, particularly in cases where the child perpetrator is rehabilitated and enabled to start afresh under a new identity. The novel addresses the ongoing grief and anguish of the victim’s family and how such unresolved feelings can sometimes spill over into righteous anger and vigilantism.
In Who Did You Tell, the person seeking revenge is unknown to the reader at first. They indulge in revenge fantasies and imagine all the different ways they could kill the main character, a recovering alcoholic whose addiction has led her down paths she now bitterly regrets. And in my most recent novel, The Dare, about a young girl killed by a train, revenge rears its ugly head once again.
I’d be surprised if there’s anyone who hasn’t at some point in their life entertained a vengeful fantasy and derived satisfaction from it, but let’s be thankful that for the most part, such stories remain in the darkest corners of our minds, or on the pages of a crime novel, where we can enjoy them in safety and without any lasting damage.
Here are some of my recommendations for books that tackle this perennial topic in fresh and interesting ways.
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby is a unique and moving take on the revenge narrative, written in fast-paced, muscular prose. Two fathers, one black, one white, join forces to avenge the murders of their gay sons, whose marriage they never accepted. Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee have little in common except their criminal pasts, their prejudices about each other and about their sons’ sexuality, and a desire to do better for them in death than they did in life. This novel doesn’t pull any punches. It is gritty and violent, but also profound and redemptive in tone.
The Golden Cage by Camilla Läckberg
My next choice is The Golden Cage by Camilla Läckberg, who has been dubbed the ‘Swedish Agatha Christie’, although it should be pointed out that there is a good deal more sex in Läckberg’s fiction than there is in Christie’s! This novel is a satisfyingly dark tale of a scorned wife exacting revenge on her feckless, billionaire husband. If you like Scandi Noir and psychological thrillers, you will love this one and although the spurned woman getting payback is a familiar trope, there is something deliciously glamorous and absorbing about this novel in its exploration of wealth, power and betrayal. The main character, Faye, is both dark and complicated, as all the best anti-heroines so often are.
Tell Me Your Secret by Dorothy Koomson
Another favorite of mine is Dorothy Koomson’s Tell Me Your Secret. Fifteen years ago, policewoman Jody made a terrible mistake that resulted in a serial killer known as ‘The Blindfolder’ escaping justice. Each life he takes from this point on increases Jody’s guilt and makes her even more desperate to catch him, even if that means endangering at least two innocent people. The thing is, Jody doesn’t just want to catch ‘The Blindfolder’, she wants to kill him too. She believes that only then will her guilt be alleviated. But like the best of revenge stories, it poses the question: can revenge ever be justified?
They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
Now when I first heard Layne Fargo’s They Never Learn described as a feminist serial killer story perfect for fans of Killing Eve, I knew straightway that I had to read it! It’s about an English professor who routinely punishes men who have abused women on her school campus. She makes their deaths look like accidents or suicides, until the local police finally catch on to her hobby. Meanwhile, a student in her freshman year is seeking revenge on the man who has sexually assaulted her roommate. When these two stories merge halfway through the novel, the plot twist is a delight.
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton also probes the irresistible depths of revenge. Set on the small island community of The Falklands, several years after the Falklands War, it follows the lives of three women whose lives are shattered when one of them makes a tragic mistake and accidentally kills her friend’s two children. The mother of the dead boys, mired in grief and anger, plots to kill the former friend who has destroyed her life. Meanwhile, children are going missing on the island. This is a tense and foreboding read.
Different Class by Joanne Harris
Different Class by Joanne Harris is a psychological thriller set in a private boys’ school and features ageing Latin master, Roy Straitley, who is battling against a new management structure. But educational changes aren’t the only thing troubling Straitley. A shadow from his past is about to return with a vengeance – a former pupil who still haunts his dreams, a boy capable of bad thoughts and deeds, a boy who never felt accepted at the school.
***
