Keep Your Friends Close

Chloe Roberts’ dreams of an academic future finally came true when she was awarded a scholarship at the prestigious Morton Academy. She had always longed to go to university but her humble and financially straitened upbringing in a single parent family in the North West of England had tempered her ambitions. Such was her success at the Academy that she was easily the favourite for the role of Head Girl and leader of Jewel and Bone, the school’s secret and influential society. But the rosiest of situations can be blighted and when Chloe’s best friend Nikhita Patel uses her to get the information she needs to usurp her, Chloe’s glittering future seems to have evaded her. Nikhita stops at nothing to insult and humiliate Chloe, including stealing her boyfriend Theo and turning the members of Jewel and Bone against her.

This sustained campaign of nastiness, of career doors closing and so-called friends turning their backs on Chloe-literally and metaphorically-breaks her down and it is only the help and support of her closest friends Lottie, Francesca and Rachel which keeps her functioning at any level. Murphy writes evocatively about the cruelty endemic in some boarding schools and of the oppressive claustrophobia of rejection and ridicule which thrives if not immediately checked. However, her command of credible storylines is not always quite as assured and as one murder follows another and all three of Chloe’s closest friends are dead, credibility is somewhat strained.

She is adept at creating a feeling of sinister menace around the activities of Jewel and Bone and their unsavoury interactions with the senior management of the school. There are some genuinely chilling moments in their gatherings, which are full of ritual and a sense of sacrifice and one occasion Chloe barely escapes with her life. Corruption and betrayal have long been a part of those in positions of power and the novel weaves these threads into a tapestry where nothing is quite as it seems and dangerous currents eddy around those who seek answers in order to protect themselves and expose the truth.

The ending of the book undoubtedly comes as a shock but is not entirely convincing as it is something of a volte-face for Chloe. Murray takes great pains to show the reader that few people can be trusted and self-interest and the acquisition of wealth and position are the paramount concerns of far too many of those in power: school as a microcosm of society.