Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2013
378 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two eleven-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day so many years ago. Now with new, vastly different lives—and unknowing families to protect—will they really be able to keep their wicked secret hidden?
Gripping and fast-paced, with an ending that will stay with you long after you've read it, The Wicked Girls will appeal to fans of the Academy Award–nominated film Heavenly Creatures and the novels of Rosamund Lupton and Chevy Stevens.
Edgar Awards, 2014
"Memorable . . [a] disturbing thriller" - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. If Tana French and Gillian Flynn stayed up all night telling stories at an abandoned amusement park, this is awfully close to what they might come up with." - Booklist
"Marwood has written a terrific thriller, full of dark turns and dread, and the twisty ending will stick with readers long after they finish the book. Fans of intelligent page-turners by such authors as Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn will snatch this one up." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. A suspenseful, buzz-worthy novel offering a sure-footed depiction of two women who lost their childhoods. " - Kirkus Reviews
"The suspense keeps the pages flying, but what sets this one apart is the palpable sense of onrushing doom." – Stephen King, "The Best Books I Read This Year", Entertainment Weekly
"Harrowing… while the received wisdom on violence committed by children seems to be that 'some people just are born evil,' Marwood makes a strong case that these crimes are more likely rooted in poverty, abuse and parental abandonment." – The New York Time Book Review
"The swirling mass of perceptions and happenings behind the main drama of Kirsty and Amber's past crime is what makes The Wicked Girls more than a plot-driven mystery novel. (Not that it isn't also that; Marwood sacrifices no speed, no engaging details or cliffhangers for the sake of the book's spiky undercurrent)." – The Rumpus
"In addition to being an excellent intelligent dark thriller in the vein of Gillian Flynn, The Wicked Girls presents an intriguing insider's account of salacious British tabloid journalism" – BoingBoing
"[Alex] Marwood is equally at home with terrifying, potentially violent scenes and quieter ones revealing the tensions of work and family life. She is also adept at depicting the subtle and not so subtle ways differences in class shape the lives of the girls and the women they've become." - Columbus Dispatch
This information about The Wicked Girls was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alex Marwood is the pseudonym of Serena Mackesy, a successful journalist who has worked extensively across the British press. Her first novel The Wicked Girls won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and is nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. Mackesy lives in South London.
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