2019/41: The Brighton Mermaid -- Dorothy Koomson

That, for me, has always been the worst part of the Brighton Mermaid story, and the stories of the other mermaids: they were not treated as though they were human. ... They seemed to be just bodies. Things to talk about. Things to ponder and 'solve'. But not real humans who needed dignity and respect and consideration for simply having existed. Whatever happens next, I will not be 'just' a body that shows up or even that is never heard from again. Whatever happens next, people will know who I am. [loc 5065]

The novel starts in 1993. Jude and Nell are teenage girls who've snuck out to go to a party. On their way home they find a dead woman, with a mermaid tattoo, on Brighton beach. This discovery changes their lives.

Jude disappears shortly after the discovery of 'the Brighton Mermaid'. Nell's father is targetted by the police in regard to Jude's disappearance; Nell blames one particular police officer, John Pope, who intimidated and bullied her that night. And over the next years, there are other similar murders: young women, found dead on beaches along the south coast.

Fast-forward twenty-five years. Nell has quit her day job to focus on her research -- she runs a genealogical business helping people connect with lost relatives, but her main aim is to acquire a DNA sample that will help her put a name to the Brighton Mermaid. Her sister Macy is bringing up two children, living with a man who Nell used to date, and prone to magical thinking: she phones Nell every Saturday morning at 5:17am, certain that this will mean the following week goes well.

Until the day Nell doesn't answer ...

I found this very readable, but wasn't wholly convinced by the murder mystery or its solution. I identified one guilty party quite early on, but the other was more or less invisible for much of the book. Macy's secret -- the one that's shaped her life, the one she keeps meaning to tell Nell but never does, the one that's teased throughout the book -- would have made a lot of difference not only to Nell but to the rest of the family. Why does she never speak out? (Why doesn't the other person speak out either?) And Nell's new squeeze, Zach, has a secret too -- and a tragic past, for no apparent reason.

It's good to read a thriller where most of the characters aren't white. Racism definitely plays a part in the harassment of Nell's family, but it is not the only factor. (Indeed, adult Nell doesn't seem to be the recipient of either racist or sexist abuse.) There were some interesting angles on secrets, identity and protectiveness: but in the end, I wasn't convinced.

I read this for the 'crime or mystery novel by a woman of colour' rubric on the Reading Women 2019 Challenge.