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| Richard Armitage - credit Kaitlyn Mikayla |
I didn't really know whether I
was going to write about this book. It was a gift from a very good friend
living in England. It is autographed by the author. And the author is Richard
Armitage.
Now, if you have been reading
FLY HIGH! for a long time, you will understand why this is not quite an
ordinary book for me.
I have been following Richard
Armitage since he was John Thornton in BBC North and South back in 2004.
I watched almost everything he did as an actor, read books he recommended,
wrote countless posts about him and his work, and even flew to London to see
him on stage.
And, let's be honest, a large
part of FLY HIGH!'s success in the past was connected to him. I wrote about him
regularly, people came to the blog because of him, and some of the friendships
I made through FLY HIGH! began with that shared fascination.
So yes, when he became an author, I was obviously going to read his books.
But there is a little problem.
Crime novels, mysteries and
thrillers are really not my cup of tea.
I read Geneva, his
first novel, and now I have finished The Cut. And although neither book
belongs to the kind of fiction I normally choose for myself, I have to say that
I found The Cut especially well written.
So here I am, writing about it
after all.
SO, WHAT IS THE
CUT ABOUT?
The Cut is a psychological crime thriller told through two timelines, 1994 and the
present day.
In 1994, in the quiet English
village of Barton Mallet, teenagers Ben Knott, his girlfriend Annie Maddock and
their friends are enjoying their final year at school. But everything changes
at the Leaver's Dance, when Annie is murdered.
One of their friends, Dave
Patel, is convicted of the crime and sent to prison.
Thirty years later, Ben has
apparently built a completely different life. He is an architect and
businessman, has a partner and two children, and should have left that terrible
summer far behind him.
Except that the past has a
nasty habit of coming back.
Dave is about to be released
from prison. Ben is also dealing with financial problems. And then a Hollywood
film crew arrives in Barton Mallet to make a horror film, with Ben's teenage
son Nathan landing one of the main roles.
The disturbing part?
The film's story begins to
mirror the events of Ben's past. And suddenly the past and present start
colliding.
DARK, MOODY
AND CINEMATIC
One thing I certainly cannot
complain about is the atmosphere.
The Cut is dark and moody, with a strong sense of place and an increasingly
uncomfortable feeling that something is not quite right. Armitage builds the
atmosphere very effectively, and there is a definite cinematic quality to the
way the story unfolds.
And perhaps that should not
surprise us.
After all, he is an actor. He
has spent years working with scripts, characters, pacing and stories designed
to keep an audience watching. Some of that experience inevitably finds its way
into his writing.
The story moves towards a
dramatic, high-stakes finale, bringing together the secrets of the past and the
paranoia of the present. And this time I could really see what he was trying to
do.
FROM ACTOR
TO AUTHOR
One of the things I found
interesting while thinking about The Cut is how much Armitage's
experience with television seems to have influenced the way he constructs his
stories.
He has talked about what he
learned from working with Harlan Coben, particularly about structural pacing.
Coben's approach to storytelling made him think differently about how a
thriller should keep moving and how each section should push the reader towards
the next revelation.
That influence seems
particularly noticeable in The Cut.
Rather than telling the story
in a straightforward way, Armitage moves between different periods and
gradually connects the pieces. The 1994 tragedy runs alongside the modern film
production, creating a kind of story within the story.
There are revelations, changes
of direction and cliffhangers designed to make you want to carry on reading.
And I can see why this
works.In fact, I suspect it works even better for readers who actually love
thrillers.
BUT… I HAVE
TO BE HONEST
Because this is FLY HIGH!, and
because I don't want to pretend that I suddenly became a devoted thriller
reader just because Richard Armitage wrote a book, I also have to say what
didn't work for me.
The biggest problem was that I
guessed some of the mystery and the major twists rather early.
And once I had guessed where some of the story was
going, part of the suspense disappeared.
There were also moments when I
found the opening rather slow and I occasionally struggled with the
plausibility of the modern film-crew storyline. But perhaps my biggest
difficulty was the characters.I never became completely emotionally attached to
them.
Both the teenagers and the
adults are, in different ways, quite difficult people to relate to and I found
myself more interested in discovering what had happened than desperately
needing to know what would happen to them.
And that matters. At least to
me. Because I'm the sort of reader who needs to care about people before I can
become completely absorbed in their story.
SO, DID I
ENJOY IT?
This is where it gets
complicated. Would I have picked up The Cut in a bookshop if I didn't
know who had written it? Probably not.
Would I recommend it to
someone who, like me, doesn't particularly enjoy crime novels and thrillers? I'm
not sure.
But does that mean I think it
is a bad book? Absolutely not. Quite the opposite.
I think The Cut shows a
writer who has become much more confident about structure, pacing and creating
suspense. The atmosphere is effective, the story is carefully constructed, and
there is a real sense of momentum once the different strands begin to come
together.
It simply isn't my kind
of story. And there is nothing wrong with that.
AND THEN
THERE IS THE OTHER STORY…
The other reason I wanted to
write about this book is, of course, the person who wrote it.
For years, Richard Armitage
was one of the people I wrote about most on FLY HIGH!
That was another FLY HIGH!,
really.
A blog full of North and
South, John Thornton, films, television, theatre, interviews, photographs,
discussions, excitement and all the wonderful friendships that came from
sharing an obsession with someone else's work.
A lot has changed since then. I
have changed. The blog has changed. My interests have changed. And my reading
certainly has changed.
So perhaps there is something
rather nice about finding myself here, all these years later, reading another
book by the same actor who played such a huge part in the story of this blog.
Only now I don't feel that I
have to love it just because I love the author. I can appreciate what he has
done.
I can recognise the skill. I
can even enjoy parts of the book and still say:
This is not really my cup of
tea.
THE FINAL
CUT
So, no, this isn't going to be
one of those reviews where I tell you that The Cut changed my life and
that everyone must immediately rush out and buy it. It didn't.
But I did find it a much more
accomplished reading experience than I expected, especially considering how far
the genre is from my usual choices.
And perhaps that is what I
like most about having finally written this review. I didn't have to choose
between being the old FLY HIGH! reader who followed Richard Armitage everywhere
and the reader I am today. I could be both.
I could remember why I once
found him so fascinating, appreciate how important he was to the history of
this blog, read his latest book and then sit down and say honestly what I
thought about it.
Which is, after all, what
reading is supposed to be about. We don't have to love every book. Sometimes it
is enough to finish one, close it, think about it for a while… …and realise
that there was actually quite a lot to talk about after all.
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