- I Have Some Questions For You, by Rebecca Makkai. Fleet, $32.99.
True crime has never been more popular. A recent poll revealed that half of all American enjoy true crime and one in three say they "consume" it at least once a week.
In answers to the same poll, Americans believe true crime creates empathy for the victims and although many of them find the genre graphic and disturbing, more say "it's exciting and suspenseful". Surprisingly, true crime appeals more to women than to men.
Carnegie medal-winning American author Rebecca Makkai's latest novel, I Have Some Questions for You, poses a number of questions about the real impact of true crime podcasts on both victims and suspects.
Bodie Kane has survived a troubled childhood and her miserable years at Granby, a New Hampshire boarding school, to become a successful college professor in film studies in LA. Her current podcast, Scarlet Fever is "a serial history of women in film - the ways the industry chews them up and spat them out".
When Granby invites her back to teach courses in both film studies and podcasting, Bodie's memories inevitably return to the murder of her beautiful, charismatic roommate, Thalia Keith, in 1995.
Her podcast about dead women in Hollywood has "helped bring back Thalia's death: the way her body had been cast aside, the way Granby distanced itself from the mess, the way her murder had been made public property".
The murder had been solved quickly. Omar Evans, an athletic trainer at the school and the only black man on campus, was arrested, tried and convicted. He has spent the last 23 years in prison.
However, Omar's guilt is constantly questioned in online forums. Was he a victim of an inexperienced and racist small-town police force and a racist school that wanted to close the case quickly?
When Bodie's podcast students become fascinated with aspects of the murder and question Omar's guilt, Brodie is forced to face the details of her past and the painful memories of her student days at Granby.
The you in the novel's title is Mr Bloch, a drama teacher long departed from New Hampshire. Brodie believes he groomed Thalia for sex.
She accuses him constantly throughout the story, mourning a lost life: "What could be more romantic? What's as perfect as a girl stopped dead, midformation? Girl as blank slate. Girl as reflection of your desires, unmarred by her own."
I Have Some Questions for You is clever, complicated and engrossing, combining a boarding school mystery with a classic whodunit, while exploring the impact of the MeToo movement and the populist power of social media.
