Book Review: Gill Perdue is a highly empathetic writer in When They See Me

Gill Perdue

• When They See Me 
• Gill Perdue 
• Sandycove, €15.99

A writer, dance teacher and ex-primary school teacher, Gill Perdue wrote four children’s books before publishing her first novel for adults. That book, The Interview, also known as If I Tell, garnered Perdue a nomination for Crime Novel of the Year at the 2022 An Post Irish Book Awards. 

Featuring a 14-year-old protagonist, The Interview employed aspects of myth and fairy tale in a dark, intense story of shifting perspectives. It also introduced readers to specialist victim interviewer (SVI) Detective Garda Laura Shaw and her detective partner Niamh Darmody.

Shaw and Darmody return in When They See Me. Perdue says that her first novel was originally intended to be a children’s book, a dark one, and that it took a while for her to realise it was something else. The reader senses a clearer genesis for her second outing.

An au pair vanishes from the affluent Dublin suburb of Clonchapel and the only witness is a two-year-old child. With her experience, including a background studying psychology at Trinity, if ever there was a case for Laura Shaw, this is it.

Except Laura is on leave, considering a career break, and questioning whether she can ever return to her garda role. She’s treading water — doing her best to recover from the traumatic events of The Interview — while breastfeeding her nine-month-old son Noah and minding her pre-school daughter Katie. Anyone would agree that she has enough on her plate already.

When They See Me by Gill Perdue

Not Niamh Darmody. She wants Laura Shaw back at work as soon as possible. Without her, Niamh is struggling; in a passionate new relationship that should be making her happier than it is; not clicking with her other colleagues the way she does with Laura. Niamh confronts her, ‘This is your area — this is what you do best ... I’m asking you ... What do you want?’ Nearly half way through the book, Laura makes the only decision she was ever going to make. As her husband Matt says, ‘You were always going to ... You’re the only one who didn’t know that.’ Which doesn’t mean that it’s easy. 

Perdue is a highly empathetic writer with real concern and affection for her creations. She does a fine job here of balancing a mother’s guilty return to the workforce, and the multiple demands that makes on an already tightly-stretched marriage, with the high stakes hunt for a serial killer.

Although Perdue uses a similar alternating point of view structure to The Interview, When They See Me gives more space to the two detectives, with Darmody’s share of the narrative expanding to equal Laura Shaw’s. We learn more about Niamh’s backstory and get to know her better. She is an attractive no nonsense character with a blind spot when it comes to her high maintenance manipulative new girlfriend Amber.

The third voice in the book, that of the as yet unidentified murderer, is less prominent than in her debut novel, but just as memorable, not least because it allows Perdue to use her dance background to chilling effect. And there is great evil in sleepy Clonchapel. Readers will recognise a classic serial killer filtered through a more contemporary Liz Nugent style sensibility.

With the bodies piling up, and the pressure building, a final perilous showdown involving the three protagonists seems inevitable.

When They See Me is a well-crafted, character driven thriller, set in a suburban milieu worthy of Andrea Mara. It would make a good reading option for anyone missing Tana French’s ‘Dublin Murders’ series.