Beautiful Malice by debut novelist Rebecca James has arrived with an almighty marketing splash, one alas undeserved. Told in the first person and up close, it’s the tale of Katherine, a seventeen-year-old Sydney girl with a crippling secret, who is thrilled to be befriended by glamorous Alice. As the relationship builds, a dark undercurrent emerges and the plot wiggles about with the introduction of boyfriends and other friends. There is plenty to admire in the setup of Beautiful Malice and Katherine is a likeable if unsubtle protagonist.
But from the outset this novel under delivers. The storyline limps along, with the expected ‘plot twists’ either foreshadowed or diluted. The writing style is simple and naive, which is quite in line with our heroine and could, in the hands of artful author, have worked really well. Instead, the flat prose irked me to the point of frustration. There is little sense of location, much of the tale being told via clunky dialogue or slow-witted inner thoughts. To anyone who regularly reads the mystery genre, the underlying puzzle, the obligatory ‘shock horror twist’ and the climax are all ho-hum.
Perhaps there is a market for Beautiful Malice in what I imagine to be the Barbara Taylor Bradford segment but it won’t offer any competition to the better books of 2010. 1 star.