The Little Friend By Donna Tartt

 

The Little Friend

By Donna Tartt

When she was a baby, Harriet Dufrenes's older brother Robin was murdered. Since then Harriet and her sister Allison have lived a mostly idyllic life in their small town in Mississippi. Sure, their mother Charlotte sleeps most of her days away, but Harriet has her Grandmother Edith and a host of great-aunts who live nearby. She fills her days spending time with them and playing with her friend Hely. But Robin's ghost lingers and no one will tell Harriet anything about the day he was murdered, right in their own yard.

Then one day someone lets it slip that a town hoodlum, named Danny Ratliff who comes from a family of bad seeds and who was Robin's age, might be the killer. Harriet searches for a way to get even with him. When she finally lands on a plan it all goes awry when Harriet does something that she can't take back and finds out that her suspicions were wrong.

The Little Friend was an exciting read, with the feeling of Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger; that small town, growing up nostalgia mixed with a series of crimes that falls on the head of a young protagonist. The pacing of this book was spot on for me. The characters were fun and entertaining, and a little over the top. I can see why this book is compared with Dickens in that regard. There is some exploration of class and racial divides, which are openly hostile in the south in the early 1970s. I love the Alabama/Mississppi accent, and Tartt uses it a little in the story, which made me smile. I could here the words coming off the page. The suspense is good; I didn't know where she was going to go with the story, much like The Goldfinch, but a little less gritty.

I think this is a strong 4.5 star read. I was on the edge of my seat, but I wasn't blown away completely.