Reptiles by Sylvia Vetta is a crime thriller set in in a small Oxfordshire village, thinly disguised and renamed as Thames Reach. The village lies close to isolated ancient woodland on the River Thames, with its treacherous weir pool in which many have drowned.
A young woman research scientist, Dr Yasmin Bell, who has recently moved to the village, is brutally murdered bringing terrible grief to her parents and devastation to those close to her. It is only the second ever murder in the close-knit village and as both are recent and apparently linked, suspicion and terror quickly spread to divide friends, acquaintances, and colleagues alike.
The story follows the police investigation of the murder of Dr Bell, headed by DS Kate Farr, who has an uneasy professional relationship with DCI Ranjit Singh. DCI Singh oversees the Bell case and led the investigation into the previous murder.
For local crime writer, Alex Hornby, the shock is not just the murder of a young woman whom she’d recently met by chance. Nor is it that she knew the previous murder victim, and is still friends with his widow, who has links to Dr Bell. It is also that she discovered both bodies. This weird coincidence profoundly challenges her confidence as a writer of fictional thrillers and leaves her uncertain about her relationships with others.
Reptiles
The title Reptiles hangs chillingly over the tale of good and evil from the beginning. The story opens with an evening patrol by Alex Hornby and George Gamble, a fellow local wildlife campaigner, tenderly saving toads from the dangers of a busy road and returning them to the safety of their natural habitat of the woodland and water.
Though cold-blooded amphibians, the toads are drawn as innocent, peaceful, and valuable to the woodland environment. This is portrayed in stark contrast to the murderer as Alex discovers Dr Bell’s mutilated body in the undergrowth during the toad patrol.
The author draws comparisons between the murderer and the toad as a predator with a secretive double life who seeks to dominate, conquer, and sadistically kill when threatened. The investigation is hampered by the perpetrator’s ability, patience, and diligence – shared with venomous reptiles – as they remain camouflaged under the dark cover of international politics.
Reptiles is the sequel to Sylvia Vetta’s thriller, Current of Death, which is also set in Thames Reach. The female crime writer caught up in the reality of murder and what this means for her personally and as a writer; the complex background of the victim; and the changing relationship between the conscientious and ambitious investigating police officers, Farr and Singh, all add interesting complexities to the story.
Feminist themes
Reptiles and the earlier Current of Death share many mystery and thriller traditions that explore the powerful and the sometimes fatal intersection of gender, class, ethnicity, nationality, and international politics. Reptiles is, however, distinguished from the earlier work and other similar detective stories in that it is an avowedly “feminist thriller”.
As such, it places the diverse female characters in circumstances that illuminate and challenge the double standards and discrimination they face. Both personally and professionally, they must fight systematic sexism and misogyny as they strive for independence and recognition of their abilities.
The book also emphasises the inescapable pull of different cultural values on the lives of the characters, including what drives one of them to commit the murder of Dr. Bell, and what leads others to expose the dark web of intrigue leading to it. The focus on the female characters’ perspectives provides a wider context to the central plot that illuminates the risks to women in the contemporary world when they engage in struggles for women’s rights, justice, and equality.
Compelling plot
While Reptiles is written as a feminist thriller, this does not over-ride the compelling central plot and sub-plots of the male and female characters and their relationships with each other. The plots are cleverly constructed and completely credible in the way they weave in and out to create suspense and anticipation as the central plot opens out to an unpredictable outcome.
There is violence, death, and suspense in Reptiles, but the story ends with hopefulness in the endurance of the village relationships between men and women built on trust, affection, and empathy in the face of the evil crime. The belief in the importance of the natural environment to this shared humanity is confirmed at the end in Alex and George’s healing walk on the Ridgeway to the ancient chalk carving etched on White Horse Hill. There, Alex begins to tell new stories.
Author’s note: To understand Sylvia Vetta’s goal in writing Reptiles, I recommend further reading from her other wide-ranging works that include a delightful memoir and further novels, articles, and essays.
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