Oh joy, another annoying character called Jude, just what I needed. Not even tacking on a random nickname - 'because I've got the same lack of concern for consequences as the little dog from The Wizard of Oz' - could make me care about her. Also, the title should be done under the Trades Description Act because this is not the novel suggested by the blurb (the author claims to have had a teenage run-in with Fred and Rose West but Jude's brush with danger happens about three chapters from the end of the story and has no relevance to the plot).

In 1973, three friends move into run-down house in Chapeltown, Leeds. Jo and Nel are students, Jude is a dropout. They make friends with Janice, who works in the brothel over the road and warns Jude off her patch, and then plan to travel back to Sheffield for a Roxy Music concert. Jude the flake misses her lift but decides to hitchhike because she's filled with 'joyful craziness' and 'insane bravery'. The first person narration alternates between Jude and Nel, whose voices sound exactly the same despite Jude coming from Bradford and Nel from Scotland, but the main emphasis of both is how much of a rebel and a 'freak' Jude is for living life on the edge, which is neither convincing nor endearing. She's just living the student life, getting pissed and rejecting conformity. Yawn.

Despite the era and the location of the story, the promised fear and danger for the girls never materialises - the murder of two real life hitchhikers is mentioned, the Wests make a pointless cameo appearance, and the Ripper isn't even hinted at. The lives of Jude and Nel - Jo sort of falls by the wayside because she's normal and happy - plod on for 300 pages and nothing really happens. Nel is stuck in a toxic relationship, Jude gets caught up in an equally twisted 'open marriage' and continues to bait the reader by riding around the country with strangers for a kick. I mean, this is fine as a coming of age story, but the setting could equally be the author's own Wales in the 1990s - there's nothing unique to the 70s or Yorkshire here (the author and her editor can't even spell Headingley!) Jude sums up the lack of plot perfectly: 'So, everyone is fucking everyone. Nothing's real, nothing's true and nothing's special.' ( )

1973, from art school to shared housing in run-down Leeds, and Jude (aka Toto) is a chaotic, wild child, living a reckless, slightly crazy life, thoroughly enjoying her youth, blissfully unconnected with the news of random attacks on woman that keep showing up on the news.

What a wild ride TOTO AMONG THE MURDERERS was - it could leave the reader with a decided longing for the good old mad, bad, crazy days of teenage-hood, when you could get away with hitchhiking, moving from share house to share house, wandering about with little idea of where you were going or what you'd end up doing. Or it could leave readers wondering how the hell previous generations survived. Especially when the casual references to Fred and Rosemary West are thrown into the mix.

Beautifully executed this coming of age story, combined with thriller aspects, was really a roller-coaster. Toto is a great character, mad, wild, restless, seemingly without a care in the world, or a foot in reality. Yet she sees things like the plight of neighbour Janice; and what her boyfriend's behaviour is doing to her best friend Nel.

It seems there's some fact behind the fiction here, involving the author and her own personal encounters with the West's, so it's not hard to believe that a fair amount of this novel is influenced by personal experience. Having said that, the West encounter is kind of less important overall than the coming of age aspects that the young women - Jude and her friend Nel in particular - experience. The story of friendship, self-preservation, love and respect for others really shines through. The way that they hang onto the things that matter in the face of a heap of obstacles - from the sorts of no-future jobs girls had to put up with then; share houses and the problems of flatmates from hell; idiot boyfriends; dysfunctional families; rang very true and made for really engaging reading.

Where TOTO AMONG THE MURDERERS really shone, actually glowed with the light of determination and gloriousness, is in the way it illuminated young women, as they really are. With all the doubts, thoughts, feelings, and desires. Reckless, clever, daft as a brush, brave and crazy. The whole thing is not just beautifully executed and car crash fascinating, it's very reaffirming in a most unexpected manner.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/toto-amongst-murderers-sally-j-morgan ( )