If a jury won't meet your eye, you're going down the pan.
The award-winning Charity Norman brings another tricky thriller to the table: a cleverly plotted story bookended by a trial.
Norman keeps readers guessing as to who's in the dock until quite a way into the harrowing tale of a family gone down the rabbit hole of internet conspiracy theory, only to find themselves caught up in the Covid-19 Pandemic.
At first impression, the court case at the beginning of Home Truths appears to have nothing to do with the accidental death that comes after. Nicky, a fifty-year-old neurodivergent man, although living independently, was at risk due to his diabetes. His anxiety would have saved him, if it weren't for a lost phone.
After his brother's death, something he felt could have been prevented, Scott withdraws: hooked into an online world of conspiracy theories, medical misinformation and whispers of an elite who pull the strings.
"All they need is a grain of truth to make their argument credible, lend it some authenticity, then they've got you."
Have you ever been down the rabbit-hole of internet videos? Who of us hasn't? One video leads to another and another. It's addictive.
"Scott believes he's taken the red pill and can see everything as it really is."
Scott's decisions cost him his job, his marriage and his sanity.
"You can't fight an invisible enemy..."
Livia, Scott's wife, tries anyway - to bring her husband back from the brink, to keep her family together and the mortgage payments going, but when her son Noah, also at risk with chronic asthma, is in danger, a mother protecting her cub is something to be reckoned with.
Norman presents three points of view to tell the different sides of this family drama: Livia's conflicted love for her damaged husband, trying desperately to reach and understand him; Heidi, their teenage daughter, weighed under by her culpability in Nicky's death; and Scott's perspective as his life spirals out of control, his vulnerability exploited and manipulated by a bogus internet doctor.
Who is pulling the strings? Who is in the dock, and why? Will this family survive the tragedies thrown at them? Home Truths is packed with action as it reaches its conclusion.
Charity Norman's books have a strong sense of setting. Remember Me, the award-winning story of a woman who disappeared in the Ruahine Ranges, invoked a misty, moody atmosphere that could easily swallow people up. In Home Truths, she returns to the U.K. and a freezing winter in North Yorkshire:
The moors put on a spectacular show as I drove home that evening. Granite thunderheads gathered and grumbled along the horizon, outlined in brilliance as the sun sank behind them. Swathes of woodland flamed in the storm light. Beautiful. Unsettling.
What inspired Norman to pen this novel, set in 2019? We've seen many books in the last few years that examine the impact of Covid-19 on families. Norman's response to the experience raises issues surrounded in greyness: things such as vaccine fear and medical corruption - ideas raised by many and pooh-poohed by others while the world came to terms with the outbreak of the pandemic.
This is Charity Norman's eighth book, and it's a gripping read.
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