Beth Is Dead

It is a bold move indeed to bring a literary classic kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Yet it’s a move which Katie Bernet navigates successfully with this murder mystery based on Louisa May Alcott’s much-loved family saga, Little Women. Meg, Amy, Jo and Beth are transported into a world of parties, technology-and highly controversial novels. The one most immediately pre-occupying them-and the huge readership which has claimed it-has been written by the girls’ father and culminates in Beth’s death in a car crash.

The reader outrage which this fictional tragedy provokes places the March family firmly in the centre of a media storm and when their father is hounded by protesters and social media pundits their lives are irrevocably changed. Mr March flees-not to the Civil War of the original manuscript-but apparently to Vancouver, where he hopes his disappearance will protect his family from the vitriol of angry and disappointed readers. His contact with the family is sporadic at best and shortly after it peters out completely Beth is murdered after attending a New Year’s Eve party in a gruesome echoing of her death in her father’s novel.

This construct opens up a wealth of authorial possibilities in suggesting to readers who the murderer might be and Bernet mines this complexity with consummate skill. Her timeshifts, combined with red herrings to blur the identity of the murderer could be confusing in the hands of a less talented author. However, Bernet adeptly pulls off this weave of smoke and mirrors and instead of provoking irritation in the reader generates a page-turning fascination. Theories are confounded, characters’ emotions are at fever-pitch, alliances are broken and re-formed and yet the characteristics of the original characters shine through, brilliantly transplanted into a new era.

The element of surprise is cleverly and judiciously used, ensuring that readers are wholly drawn into the action yet remain clear-sighted and vigilant. Set alongside the violence and deception are familiar themes from Alcott’s original work: morality, the importance of family, sacrifice and personal growth, giving the narrative a universal bedrock -and it is yet again a demonstration of Bernet’s skill that she makes these themes sit completely comfortably in the modern world.