When The Gates of Evangeline arrived – kerplunk – on my desk and I read the blurb, ‘Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Cates, a New York journalist and single mother mourning the recent, unexpected death of her young son … my first thought was – not for me. I don’t do grieving mothers. They tear me to shreds.
Thankfully, I flicked through the first page, and was hooked.
Hester Young handles her material with aplomb, and though we are aware of Charlie Cates’ loss we are not manipulated by it. Instead, Young, who writes in the first person present, with spare and finely edged language, takes us on Charlie’s journey -from the urban New York to small town Louisiana.
It is here, in the sultry state with its swamps, and evocative history, that she takes a commission to write a true-crime book based on the case of Gabriel Deveau. Gabriel is the young heir to a wealthy and infamous Southern family who was kidnapped thirty years ago and it is a crime that has never been solved.
Charlie ‘witnesses’ events through hallucinations, which drive her onwards. She uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal and murder. The facts appear to implicate those she most wants to trust.
The Gates of Evangeline is gripping, with a tremendous sense of place, (I need to put Louisiana on my list of places to go). It is a sense of place that I found reminiscent of James Lee Burke, one of the most atmospheric authors I have read, and whose work I love.
Young has created a Gothic epic, a great whodunit with a slightly but ‘in context’ supernatural bent. I couldn’t put it down, and found myself trying to work out who indeed ‘dunit’. I was half right, but that’s the thing with Young, there’s always another twist, an unpredictability that is in keeping, but surprising.
In The Gates of Evangeline, Hester Young, who lives with her husband and two children in New Jersey, has created a carefully crafted and fantastic literary debut.
Read it, but don’t expect to be able to put it down. This is a new crime series, which is great news. Can’t wait for the second to hit the bookstands.
Frost is publishing Hester Young’s A Day in the Life in a week.
Hardback by Century at £16.99