I first took notice of Erin Kelly’s The Poison Tree when I read a write up in the July 2010 issue of Good Reading magazine. Sometimes all it takes to convince me to read something is the mere mention of a decaying mansion being an important part of the plot. Yes, this has something to do with the novel I’ve been carrying around inside me for years now. One day, my friends, one day. But until then, I keep reading other people’s take on the deteriorating house hoping that they haven’t pilfered my idea.

It’s the sweltering summer of 1997, and Karen Clarke, a gifted student of languages is finishing up at university. Unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend, she uses her new found freedom as an opportunity to extend herself beyond her comfortable friendship group. A chance meeting with the wildly bohemian Biba Capel sees Karen pulled into the inclusive and mysterious world of Biba and her brother, Rex, and their crumbling childhood home in London. By the end of the summer, as the byline goes, two people will be dead and lives changed irrevocably.

She slung an arm around me so that our cheeks were pressed together and mouthed the words as my pencil formed them. Personal space was clearly an alien concept to her. That, coupled with her eccentric clothes and complete lack of self-consciousness meant that by now I was pretty sure I was dealing with a mad person, fascinating and disarmingly different to everything I was used to.

Told in Karen’s perspective between the past and the present, The Poison Tree spends much of its time vaguely hinting at what is to come, and the secrets that are being kept from the other characters and the reader. This attempted build up just wasn’t effective or suspenseful, there are no real hints at what or how things panned out, just the deliberate ambiguity that something did happen. Why not trust the natural dramatic momentum of a story rather than resorting to the tired flashback technique? I had much of the same issue with Rebecca James’ Beautiful Malice, (which is in many ways very similar to The Poison Tree, the secrets and hidden troubled past of a main character, now with child, looking back) so I wonder how much of my impatience with this technique has to do with the genre itself, or my lack of knowledge and awareness of psychological thrillers.

I’m loathe to reveal too much more of the plot, as the unravelling of the secrets is the main point of enjoyment of such a novel. The early days of Rex, Biba and Karen’s friendship doesn’t quite reach those frenetic, heady heights of new and exciting friendships, as I imagine was intended. The last third is a rush of tying up loose ends and revelations, which makes for moderately thrilling reading but the accelerated pace here jars with the slow beginning. An uneven pace and wildly vacillating characterizations prevent The Poison Tree from being truly gripping, but it somehow manages to be passably entertaining.

[Disclaimer: publisher supplied proof copy from work. The Poison Tree was released in Australia by Hachette in June 2010, ISBN:  978-144-470104-3]