Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

Scribner, 368 pages $27

I’ve been a big fan of Australian author Michael Robotham since forever. (We would call him “Robot-ham” at the store to remember how to spell his name, no disrespect intended.) His signature series starring psychologist Joe O’Loughlin and retired London detective Vincent Ruiz dwindled to a close, it seems, with “Close Your Eyes” (2015). Since then he has written a couple of standalones, including the new “Good Girl, Bad Girl.” However, my money is on a continuing series from “Good Girl, Bad Girl” because there were some—not cliff-hangers, exactly—hill-hangers. And, best of all, the two main characters, whose narratives take turns, psychologist Cyrus Haven and psychologically damaged maybe-teenager Evie Cormac, are truly wonderful, eccentric, interesting characters, chock-full of unrevealed past elements. And not incidentally, some of the side characters beg to be brought back again and again.

Cyrus is a consulting forensic psychologist for the Nottinghamshire police. You would think that would allow him to live a middle class life, but instead he lives with a crumbling house and a rotting car. I think you are meant to equate that with a sense that his unresolved trauma and personality also need tidying. 

Here’s an aside: The action takes place in Robin Hood territory. Yes, we get the Sheriff of Nottingham(shire). (Boo!) We have “Maid Marion Way” for a road. Cyrus says, “Sometimes I’d say that my mother’s maiden name was Locksley and I had outlaw blood in my veins, which was complete bollocks but a great chat-up line.”

The idea is that Cyrus is a complex person, better thought of as a psychological patient rather than a doctor sometimes. Robotham does reveal Cyrus’ traumatic past and his relationship with a police detective who took a teenage Cyrus under her wing, Chief Inspector Lenny Parval. It is because of Parval that Cyrus becomes involved in a recent homicide. And it is because of a colleague who is at his wit’s end with a patient in a care facility that Cyrus becomes involved in a six-year-old homicide.

First the current case. Jodie Sheehan was an exemplary fifteen-year-old, it seemed. She was bound for glory as a champion ice skater. Coached to success by her mother’s brother, she maintained her grounding by staying close to relatives. When her body is discovered in the woods, it horrifies the community. The details are graphic. The police are looking for a rapist, but is it for a stranger for whom this was a crime of opportunity or is it for someone who knew her, with whom she felt comfortable and by whom she could be easily waylaid. When Cyrus is called to the scene, we realize from his first-person narrative that his take on the crime is very different from that of a detective or forensic specialist or just about anyone else.

A psychologist views a crime scene differently from a detective. Police search for physical clues and witnesses. I look at the overall picture and the salience of certain landmarks and features. Where are the obstacles and boundaries that alter behavior? How quickly does someone disappear from sight? How far can I see in each direction? What are the vantage points and the shortcuts?

Will Cyrus’ input confuse or clarify the crime?

Now the old case. Evie Cormac, a young person of indeterminate age, was discovered hiding in a house in which a gruesome torture murder had occurred. The murdered man was assumed to be her abductor, but as we can tell from Evie’s first-person narrative, he was her savior. What kind of life had Evie led? Robotham dishes some information out in drips and drabs, but she is a huge question mark. She is remarkably smart in some ways, and incredibly naive in others. The press dubbed her “the girl in the box” and nicknamed her “Angel Face,” since her real name (which isn’t Evie Cormac, by the way) was not released at the time. Cyrus is called upon to meet with her and offer aid. The first thing Cyrus notices is that Evie can tell when someone is lying. He knows she is a “truth wizard,” a human lie detector. (Is there such a thing? Don’t know. For the purpose of this book, it’s a great gimmick!)

Through some contrivances, Evie becomes Cyrus’ ward. The court has determined, in lieu of actual documentation, that Evie will not turn eighteen, the age of emancipation, until the next year. Cyrus volunteers, much to his surprise, to be her guardian until then. Two damaged people can understand each other, he supposes. She is suspicious of his motives, but soon a Holmes-Watson relationship develops. Make that Holmes-Holmes, since Evie is a bright but cantankerous bulb.

Red herrings, blind alleys, everyone-is-a-suspect. Name a mystery trope and it’s here. In other words, these days, it’s not so much what the story is as how it is told. Robotham is a very good story teller. He excels at characterization. He flicks his pen in a literary fashion. He brandishes philosophical writing skills. Here are a few choice quotes:

As a forensic psychologist, I have met killers and psychopaths and sociopaths, but I refuse to define people as being good or evil. Wrongdoing is an absence of something good rather than something fated or written in our DNA or forced upon us by shitty parents or careless teachers or cruel friendships. Evil is not a state; it is a ‘property,’ and when a person is in possession of enough ‘property,’ it sometimes begins to define them.

And

In reality, there isn’t some shooter in the grassy knoll or child sex ring in the pizza shop or secret group controlling the world. To misquote Mark Twain: It isn’t what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just isn’t so.

There’s a lot a reader can learn about humanity from Michael Robotham’s books. He brings thought and caring to his books. Well done, sir!