Review: The Truants by Kate Weinberg

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I wasn't thinking about writing a review as I read until, at the end, I realized what an odd (for me) reading experience it had been. You see, I forgot I was reading. When I began the book, I was slightly puzzled why I selected it. Then, when nearly finished, I remembered that I had read about The Truants in the NY Times crime books column— a crime book, my favorite genre. Part of this I attribute to me being an oblivious reader but really I applaud Weinberg for a wonderfully, subtly, creatively put together crime story.

Jess Walker (the first person narrator) comes to an East Anglia university to study under Professor Lorna Clay, an expert on Agatha Christie and author of The Truants, a book that changed Jess' life. Jess becomes friends with two other students: Georgie, outgoing, no respecter of rules, from an aristocratic family, and a serious substance abuser; Nick handsome and as solid as the geology he studies. 

Bracketing the three friends are Prof. Clay is brilliant with a mesmerizing personality that makes everyone fall in love with her and hang on her every word. She is also doesn't respect teacher/student boundaries and encourages breaking rules. On the other side is Alec Van Zanten, a South African journalist, handsome and charismatic, who becomes a part of the group.

I got so caught up in the relationships between the characters that I forgot that there was a crime story in it. Jess, Georgie, and Nick are not very experienced in life and are easily influenced by Lorna and Alec. We have lies, deceit, disappearances, obsession, love, and betrayal playing out with Alec taking the trio off on alcohol fueled adventures in the hearse he uses as his personal automobile. 

Each chapter Lorna's book, The Truants, is

...a short biography of a debauched but brilliant life, mingled with some incisive analysis linking their foulest behavior with their most sublime output

These are people who lived life dangerously and left collateral damage in their wake, who broke rules and played truant from their lives. Influenced by Lorna and Alec, Jess, Georgie, and Nick become truants themselves though less extreme versions of the truants in Lorna's book.

Clues are found throughout the narrative, subtly woven in for the reader to put together. The most obvious alert is Agatha Christie, Lorna's speciality. Bits about her life and works are worked in mainly in the context of Jess' dissertation for her degree. Adding to the Christie element, the author drops more clues that add up to a shattering conclusion. Really, very neatly done. 

I've seen the book referred to as a thriller but I wouldn't use use that term to describe it; thrillers are more action oriented which isn't the case here. The reader is pulled along in the story which is why I read it in a day and a half. 

This is the author's debut novel and was first published in the UK in 2019. The US edition appeared in 2020. She's on my "what will she write next" watch list.

Keywords: Agatha Christie, crime novels, coming of age novels