Fiction can be a powerful tool for depicting societal ills. It is a tool of empathy that places us in the head of a wholly different person than ourselves. Sometimes, that’s wonderful; sometimes, it’s uncomfortable; sometimes, it’s horrifying. On the best of occasions, it’s all three. Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding fits all three categories. It’s an uncomfortable story about wonderfully flawed women in a horrific situation. The women are all connected by a monster of a man, and readers feel for the women as we learn their stories. We feel empathy for them even if we don’t condone their actions. Speak of the Devil is a book that deals with tough, downright awful, things done to women in an empathetic way. It asks tough questions of its readers to which there are no good answers. Speak of the Devil is a tough, impressive, wonderful debut.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
© PrimmLife.com 2023
Content Warning
This book contains depictions of child abuse, the aftermath of sexual violence, physical and emotional abuse against women. Speak of the Devil treats all of this as best as any author can.
TL;DR
Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding is a hell of a ride. Her depiction of gaslighting is as devastating as it is accurate. Follow seven women as they try to figure out who among them killed the horrible man that connects them all together. Can they find the murderer before the police do? And if they find out who killed him, will they protect her? Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
Seven women, inextricably linked by one man, must figure out which of them killed him in order to protect one another in this electrifying debut thriller.
New Year’s Eve, 1999.
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man’s head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn’t. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.
The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together—but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they’d been told.
Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman’s secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. Marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent, Speak of the Devil explores the roles into which women are cast in the lives of terrible men…and the fallout when they refuse to play pretend for one moment longer.
Review: Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
Seven women are called to a seedy motel on New Year’s Eve in 1999 where they find the severed head of Jamie Spellman. Each of the women’s lives have been affected by Jamie. None for the better. Kaysha Jackson, a journalist, had gathered all these women into a seeming support group for those whose lives Jamie has trashed. She takes it upon herself to protect the other women since she was the one to bring them together. When the head is found by the motel staff, the detective assigned to the case is Nova Stokoe, a woman dealing with a crisis of conscience. Nova also turns out to be Kaysha’s ex. Kaysha and the other women of the support group must figure out who killed him before Nova and the police do. Why did the killer do it?
Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding is a third person, close omniscient point of view thriller. The narrative flits back and forth through time to flesh out the women’s lives. It’s a quick book filled with difficult topics, and Wilding handles everything with skill. She balances sensitivity to her subject while making poignant character portraits and maintaining enough tension to keep readers glued to the page. Speak of the Devil is an impressive debut.
Characters
All seven women and detective Stokoe get their time in the spotlight here. Wilding excels at fleshing out these characters enough that they feel real and enough that we care about them without oversharing. The book opens with the seven finding the head, and then detective Stokoe arriving on the crime scene. It proceeds forward to the next day, New Year’s Day 2000. Then the novel flashes back in time to paint a picture of Jamie’s affect on a particular woman. While building her female characters, Wilding also builds Jamie’s character through the eyes of the other women. He’s a fascinating and wholly disgusting person, but none of the women in here are exactly good. Each woman has her own flaws; they lie; they cheat; they undermine other women. These actions, however hurtful, pale in comparison to the harm Jamie causes. He is a sex predator, through and through, potentially a pedophile. To him, other people exist solely for his own use – whether for pleasure, career advancement, or camouflage.
At the beginning of the book, I wanted to know who murdered Jamie. As the story progressed, I cared less and less because I became wrapped up in these women’s lives. They were interesting, heart-breaking, and so very human. (I also cared less and less because Jamie was truly terrible.) Wilding doesn’t ease the pressure on her audience though. Throughout the book – in the past and present – the heartbreaking continues. I felt for each of these women even though I didn’t like some of them.
Nova and Kaysha were my two favorite characters. Kaysha did everything she could to cover up the murder and protect the women. Her intentions were noble if not legal. Nova, as a lesbian cop, struggles with the structural biases in the police force, and it’s causing her to question her job. While I may not agree with these women’s thoughts, I found them compelling and thought-provoking. Their relationship, past and present, is adorable and self-destructive. Now that I’ve finished the book, I hope they found a good couple’s counselor and begin to work on themselves and finding a way forward for them.
Narcissist by Nature or Nurture
Jamie Spellman is a narcissist. He used these women to get what he wanted without sparing a thought for the effect it would have on the women’s lives. They were tools to him, and he used them to build a life that allowed him to be a shit to more and more women. He did truly horrible things. Gaslighting was his preferred tactic, but he wasn’t above drugging, abusing, or lying. Through any means necessary, he would achieve his ends. So, how did he get that way?
Jamie’s mother died during childbirth. His aunt, then, proceeded to raise him. She was cold and distant. She blamed Jamie for killing her sister. Jamie’s mother and aunt had fled their strict father, yet another horrible man. Jamie’s mother wanted an abortion, but Jamie’s aunt wouldn’t let her get one. When his mother died, Jamie’s aunt couldn’t forgive him. She raised him but was not mothering. On his birthdays, they visited his mother’s grave because that was what the day was. It wasn’t Jamie’s birthday; it was the anniversary of his mother’s death. His aunt wouldn’t even say ‘happy birthday’ to Jamie.
So, Jamie had a shitty childhood. One could even say that the aunt was emotional abusive and/or stunted his emotional development. Does that really result in psychopathic behavior? Or was that already in Jamie’s biochemistry? Was it a combination of both? Did his awful upbringing exacerbate his natural terribleness? I don’t have the answers, and Wilding doesn’t give her thoughts on it.
The inclusion of his aunt in the group of women Jamie has wronged strikes me as odd. She thinks Jamie wronged her by killing her sister, but that’s one ruined life Jamie can’t take the blame for. Is Wilding asking if the aunt bears any blame for what happened to the women? Well, one character in the book sure thinks so. But for Wilding and for me, that’s too simple, too pat, and it relieves Jamie of his own agency. People have shitty childhoods and don’t become monsters. I think that Jamie’s upbringing set the stage, but Jamie took to it, and he acted out his own shitty drama upon it.
Was Murder the Right Option?
Jamie was a terrible person who scarred these women. Each of them were hurt to their very cores by Jamie; for some, this included physical hurt as well. He emotionally and psychologically manipulated six of the seven women. His effect on their lives significantly altered the course of six of the seven in horrible ways. But did he deserve death?
It’s clear that had Jamie survived, he would have continued as the predator that he was. His death saved other women from pain and abuse. That’s clear. He needed to be stopped, and that’s exactly why Kaysha formed the group. They were trying to stop him using a legal system that didn’t (doesn’t) believe women. Separately, a few had tried to stop him, and the system failed them. Would they have succeeded as a group? (Your answer indicates whether you’re an optimist or pessimist.) In the end it doesn’t matter. Death stopped him despite his horrors stretching beyond his grave.
Wilding doesn’t make a judgement on whether murder was the only way to stop him. But she also paints the portrait so that the audience considers his death from a legal or moral standpoint instead of an emotional one. Readers will not mourn Jamie Spellman, but we can debate whether murder was the correct method of stopping him, and whether the murderer deserves to be punished. Wilding further complicates this by depicting the legal system as flawed and biased against women. It leads to interesting thoughts about what justice means.
Personally, I don’t think Jamie deserved to die. He would have better served society by being imprisoned and removed from affecting women’s lives. (Though he’d probably find someone to gaslight through penpals and the internet.) That said, I don’t think his murderer should be punished. Society is better off with that man’s removal, but individuals shouldn’t be able to remove someone without some sort of due process to ensure that the removal is appropriate and best for society. In the case of a terrible person like Jamie Spellman, there are extenuating circumstances that don’t result in a justified killing. But justice isn’t served by jailing the murderer. That person saved others from a monster.
Conclusion
Rose Wilding’s Speak of the Devil is a wonderful, tough book. It starts out as a murder mystery but quickly switches into a race to protect the murderer from the police. Wilding poses ethical and moral problems with this novel that aren’t easily answered even if they’re enjoyable to read about. The women in this book experience truly horrible things, and readers will feel for them. By the end, you’ll want to protect them as much as Wilding does. Highly recommended.
Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding is available from Minotaur Books now.
© PrimmLife.com 2023