The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

The brand-new standalone thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight, Julie Clark. Perfect for fans of Gillian McAllister, Lisa Jewell and Claire Douglas.
 

"I know what your dad did."
 

I set down my sandwich. "He wrote a book."
 

The boy, whose name I no longer remember, had shaken his head, eyes sparkling with glee to be the one to tell me. To shatter my childhood right there in the school cafeteria. "Your dad killed his brother and sister. Murdered them in their own home."

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of legendary horror author Vincent Taylor, famous not only for his novels, but for being the prime suspect in the brutal slaying of his siblings.

On the brink of financial ruin, Olivia reluctantly agrees to ghostwrite her father's last book, not realising that she will be forced to reckon with the ghosts that live at the centre of her family. Because after fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk. But is he ready to tell the truth?

The following review is based on a complimentary ARC provided by Sourcebooks Landmark via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Part unsolved crime journalism, part familial teenage drama, Julie Clark’s The Ghostwriter is a split perspective thriller featuring storytelling within storytelling. Slow and meticulously paced, this novel follows author Olivia Dumont who is forced to confront her past and her family’s dark history when she accepts a ghostwriting job for her own father Vincent Taylor, a popular and famous author whose life is haunted by accusations that he murdered his two siblings fifty years ago. Featuring a well planned out (and at times tragic) story full of twists and surprises, The Ghostwriter is an engrossing read that transports the reader back to the 1970’s. While subjectively some of the familial drama and teenage sibling quarreling wasn’t my preferred genre or content, I still found Clark’s novel to be well-constructed, complex, and an interesting read.

Alternating back and forth between Olivia’s interviews with Vincent retelling events from his youth and the first-person perspective experiences of several characters in the 1970’s, The Ghostwriter has a lot of different plot elements carefully woven together. Despite being recapped out of chronological order and often out of context, the story and plot are easy enough to follow and start in familiar, well-covered territory. Thrillers utilizing a writer recapping past horrific events seems to be growing into its own trope as of late but Clark’s novel sets itself apart from the rest through its visual portrayal of Ojai, California in the 1970’s as well as its engrossing storytelling. Within the novel itself, Olivia acknowledges how good of a storyteller her father is and I fully concur. Vincent’s (and via his narration, Clark’s) tone in the early interviews with his daughter Olivia were a highlight for me and I found the first half of the book to be a page-turner. The pacing, balance of exposition and visual details, the small town valley feel of Ojai, I loved it. Vincent’s oral recaps to Olivia are followed by his experiences written in first-person perspective as they occur in real-time in the 70’s. These experiences initially are exclusive to Vincent but eventually grow to also include Danny and Poppy, Vincent’s two siblings that were murdered. Clark uses the unreliable narrator perfectly, adding layers to Vincent’s story as well as purposefully muddying the details. Olivia questions whether what she’s told is true or a lie, whether her father’s deteriorating mental cognition is at play, or if he misinterpreted what he experienced. As Danny and Poppy’s perspectives are added and as Olivia investigates further in the present, the details and timelines increasingly conflict and nothing makes sense (completely by design).

As the book transitions into its 2nd half, the focus starts to shift more heavily towards the past and the family/friend dynamics in Ojai. Dysfunctional, unhealthy, and full of miscommunication, the back half of the book and events in the 1970’s consists almost entirely of relationship drama, teenage angst, and conflict. While the content was elaborate, well-written and narratively quite strong, familial drama isn’t my cup of tea and I found my interest waning despite the strong narrative developments (I picked this is up based on my interest in the unreliable narrator and crime investigation aspect, the teenage familial relationship emphasis wasn’t prominently mentioned in the synopsis). The second half of the book also features Olivia doing more traditional investigating via remaining living Ojai residents which I found to be less engaging and more typical for the thriller genre compared to Vincent’s great storytelling. This section of the book also has more of a focus on Olivia herself with her partner Tom, her estrangement with both of her parents, and the damage to her literary career, content that is objectively good but unfortunately wasn’t as interesting to me. The book also doesn’t reveal the most crucial plot twists until the last 40 pages or so (this last section recapturing the page-turning interest of the first half of the book) but when it does, it’s quite satisfying. The book’s conclusion and reveal of what Olivia ultimately believes happened, I thought was well done and though I fully guessed the ending and the plot twist reveals (a mix of well-placed clues/foreshadowing and my familiarity with crime procedurals), I can see many readers being caught off guard by the true events that happened on that unfortunate June 1975 evening.

While the overall story is well written and conceptualized, I felt the book slightly suffered from the unlikable character syndrome apart from Poppy who has all the heart and soul in the book. Clark’s characters are deeply flawed and many are quite judgmental (apart from Olivia, consistent with the socio political atmosphere of the time), which can make them both interesting to read about yet somewhat difficult to like (I found myself often at odds with Olivia’s choices and mentality personally). However, the characters have layers to them and are eventually revealed to all be dealing with their own demons internally.

While Olivia and the main Taylor siblings are well covered, I would’ve liked to see more character development for Lydia due to her prominent connection to the murders in the past and to Olivia in the present. The Ghostwriter portrays each of the Taylors as their dynamics and relationships change, often exacerbating the stress of each other. However, the story largely omitted Lydia’s personality early in the story, lacking the basis to show how her character was affected over the course of the book’s events. Compared to other characters that have more moments and attention, the reader is simply told how different she was prior to the events in the 70’s. The lack of focus on her character also affected the impact of Olivia’s discoveries of her in the present and the book never really explains why she left and cut-off Olivia when she was a child (not to mention her separation from Vincent). I also found Olivia’s relationship and dynamic with Tom to be another weak spot due both Tom’s character and his relationship being bland and shallow. I acknowledge that Olivia’s partner has very little to do with the core story so I don’t necessarily fault the book for not spending much time exploring their relationship, but their miscommunication and relationship often feels like a minor distraction from the book’s more compelling content.

Despite some of the 2nd half of the book not necessarily being my preferred genre/content and minor reservations on certain plot elements, I still appreciated how detailed The Ghost Writer was. Well-written and well-plotted, I thought this was a great slow burn type of thriller full of vignettes that really takes you back to the 70’s (or so I would imagine had I been alive back then-). Unrelated to the story, the book cover and graphic art is outstanding both from a design and narrative standpoint.