A Lesson In Cruelty by Harriet Tyce (Audiobook)

 

Three women, three separate stories.

Anna is spending her final night in prison when a new inmate is placed in her cell late at night. When Anna wakes the next morning her new cellmate is dead.

Lucy, a brilliant law student, is obsessed with her professor. She will do anything to get his attention.

Marie has lived in an isolated cabin on the edge of a remote loch for five years. Her only contact with the outside world is the weekly supply drop and the cameras that watch her every move.

A Lesson In Cruelty by Harriet Tyce is one of those stories that will initially have you wondering what you are reading/listening to. The first part focuses on Anna but every so often you get little snippets from other characters. An unknown character; lurking, watching, whispering and clearly obsessed with someone. We also hear from a pair of characters, Scylla and Charybdis, two women living together but the relationship is difficult.

Anna's story really draws you in. Initially, we don't know why she's in prison but we do know that she's filled with guilt and has decided that once she's released the only solution is to kill herself. When she is forced to share her cell on her last night in prison you can understand her reluctance to engage with her new cellmate, Kelly. All Anna wants to do is get through the night so she can be released and carry out her plan. Anna can hear that Kelly is distressed, she's talking to someone on a mobile phone. The following morning Anna discovers that Kelly has committed suicide and this puts Anna's release in jeopardy. When she is eventually released, Anna decides to change her plans and discover why Kelly was so upset.

Lucy is a law graduate, she's jumped at the chance to further her knowledge by studying under an eminent professor at Oxford. Lucy doesn't want anything to do with the rest of her cohort, all her attention is on getting closer to her professor. The closer she gets, the more she discovers about his home life but Lucy doesn't care, all she wants is him.

Marie shares a remote cabin on the edge of a loch with Janice. Their life is a difficult one, they rely on a weekly delivery of provisions but after five years they know that the actual contents can't always be relied on. It becomes clear that both women have committed terrible crimes and the remote cabin is their punishment. Over time Janice has become more and more disturbed, with Marie struggling to ensure their survival.

Eventually, you realise that the stories are connected and they begin to converge. The big question is what connects them? There is a lurking sense of dread about what will happen, you are filled with trepidation, worried about the fate of some of the characters as you realise that someone will stop at nothing to get what they want. 

There are twists galore as the fates of the three women are revealed. The narrator, Candida Gubbins, has done a fantastic job voicing the different characters but particularly "the watcher", Scylla and Charybdis. I could feel the hairs on my neck rising each time I listened to a section featuring these characters.

A Lesson In Cruelty by Harriet Tyce will be published on 11th April 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Headline Audio for a review copy.

Author Details

Harriet Tyce grew up in Edinburgh and studied English at Oxford University before doing a law conversion course at City University. She practised as a criminal barrister in London for nearly a decade, and subsequently completed an MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia. She lives in north London. Her first novel, Blood Orange, published in 2019 to huge critical acclaim and her second and third novels The Lies You Told and It Ends at Midnight have both been Sunday Times bestsellers. A Lesson in Cruelty is her fourth novel.