The Stranger Diaries

October 1, 2018

High school English teacher Clare Cassidy is understandably upset when a good friend and colleague is found dead but truly undone to learn that a line from "The Stranger," a celebrated story by her beloved Gothic writer R.M. Holland, has been left with the body. To steady herself, she starts keeping a diary, only to find someone else's handwriting amid her words, offering the threatening observation, "Hallo Clare. You don't know me." Sounds like Griffiths is out to show why she's a CWA Dagger in the Library Award winner.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2019
A secondary school English department in West Sussex is turned upside down by a series of bookish killings.Clare Cassidy is heading into middle age with just her teenage daughter, her faithful dog, her diary, and her teaching job to occupy her time. The most exciting part of her life may be the biography she hopes to write of R.M. Holland, a writer of gothic tales who once lived in the school where she works. But when one of her colleagues in the English department at Talgarth High is found murdered with a line from "The Stranger," the very same Holland story that has long obsessed Clare, left on a Post-it next to her body, she quickly realizes the murderer must be someone who knows an awful lot about her. This suspicion is confirmed when, the day before Halloween, Clare discovers that someone else has left her a note in her own diary. As the violence escalates, Clare and the police must figure out why the killer seems so fixated on Clare--and what a supernaturally tinged tale more than a hundred years old has to do with the quiet lives of small-town Brits. Griffiths alternates points of view among Clare, her 15-year-old daughter, Georgie, and DS Harbinder Kaur, the queer policewoman in charge of the murder investigation. Thrown into the mix are excerpts from "The Stranger," itself a delicious homage to writers like M.R. James. Though all these ingredients occasionally cause some structural unwieldiness, Griffiths (The Vanishing Box, 2018, etc.) hits a sweet spot for readers who love British mysteries and who are looking for something to satisfy an itch once Broadchurch has been binged and Wilkie Collins reread.Griffiths, who is known for the Magic Men mysteries and the Ruth Galloway series, has written her first stand-alone novel with immensely pleasurable results.

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February 1, 2019

High school English teacher Clare Cassidy specializes in the work of gothic writer R.M. Holland. When one of her colleagues is murdered, a line from Holland's most famous work, The Stranger, is found on her body, and the police are certain the killer is someone Clare knows. As she struggles to make sense of the events surrounding the murder, Clare pours out her heart into her diary, but when she visits an earlier volume to check on the date of a work trip, she's shocked to find a note in unfamiliar handwriting in the margins: "Hallo, Clare. You don't know me." Unsure whether she has a stalker, a ghost, or suffered a break from reality, Clare struggles to keep it together for her teenage daughter--until the next murder. VERDICT Griffiths's ("Ruth Galloway" and "Magic Men" series) first stand-alone novel is a modern gothic that updates and plays with genre conventions to great effect. Highly recommended for fans of British mysteries and classic whodunits. [See Prepub Alert, 9/10/18.]--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.