Her Many Faces - Nicci Cloke
An initial difficulty, for me, is its choice of perspective. What we have are five different viewpoints, all of them men, all of them focussed on their experience with Katherine Cole, a young woman who has been arrested and accused of the murder of four extremely wealthy, important and influential men. Katherine was the only waitress working at their private members club when the men were served a poisoned bottle of brandy. Since Katherine left the club early in a rush but despite making a rash statement that “they deserved it” when she was arrested, she denies the murder charge. You would be interested in her version of why the men were murdered, but evidently we don't get Kate's perspective, as then there wouldn't be any mystery as to what really happened and the extent of her involvement with the four men.
Instead we get Kate's backstory in alternating chapters from the perspective of her father, a young man who is the first boy to really befriend and get close to her, a married man she had a two-time fling with, a journalist digging into her troubled history as a child, and her defence lawyer who has just returned to work after a period of sick leave who has his own personal issues to deal with. He doesn't seem ready for a case like this one just yet, and is unconvinced himself about her innocence.
Kate, to put it in simple terms that are covered in more depth in the book obviously, has had a troubled childhood, much of it stemming from the death of her beloved brother as a British soldier in Iraq. After this Kate seemed to go slowly off the rails and was never offered timely counselling. She becomes hard to like and hard to sympathise with since she becomes the agent of her own destruction, becoming obsessed with conspiracy theories and getting mixed up with dubious figures on websites. That's the challenge for the reader, to understand and try to see if they can put aside prejudice that condemns Kate, whether she did it or not.
The novel leaves the question of whether there is any evidence to suggest she did it or why she might have done it aside for a long time while it builds up a picture of her background (and rather more on her lawyer's personal problems than seems necessary). Maybe she did kill the men and was justified, maybe she didn't and is being vilified by the trial of public opinion. Personally I found this choice of angle awkward, too agenda or issue driven, deliberately giving a 'male' view of a 'difficult' young woman. The stories that each tell about their encounters with Kate or course reveals as much about them and their own personal flaws and weaknesses, some more than others. It's not all about Kate, but there is something about her that brings out complicated feelings in each of the men involved.
Fortunately, the novel and its thriller mystery side does gradually gain momentum as Max the journalist starts to look into the conspiracy site that either seemed to direct Kate to the murder or potentially framed her. There is always the possibility, despite the convention of such fiction to lead the reader assume the innocence of the accused, that Kate might well have done it. She says she didn't, but her past suggests that she is capable of making bad choices. If that suggestion is dangled out, it's only briefly and quickly snatched back. There is no way that Her Many Faces is going to seriously let there be any inking that Kate is anything other than an innocent victim herself here.
That takes away a little of the edge of the book, as does the way it gradually reveals information. The choices of who presents the information, of past coinciding with present as we approach the murder trial, all takes the book on a forced direction, like a curve intentionally leading you a whole other way. Whether it's misdirection or not I'm not going to say, but either way it's clever in its novelistic structuring, particularly as the characterisation and plotting is convincing. The characters - whether you like them or not - all feel genuine, their actions don't ever seem forced or out of place, even if they have been chosen as novelistic constructs to put across certain views. They are undoubtedly good choices, well drawn, but personally, I never felt like I could relate to them. Others might think differently of course.
None of this however prevents Her Many Faces from being a totally compelling read, but more than that, it does touch on a number of contemporary social issues and behaviours - even in its construction - relating to the feeding of information. The harm created in social media witch hunts and conspiracy theories, the drive of mainstream media to provide sensational news to generate hits and possibly drive agendas, the use and abuse of power, particularly in those with great riches to exert undue influence, and specifically in how this ends up in the vilification of young women. Putting aside reservations about how this is served up, all of these subjects have a significant bearing on the drama, giving it considerably more depth and leaving you with much more to think about by the time we get past the murder trial.
Reading notes: Her Many Faces by Nicci Cloke is published by Penguin/Random House UK under their Harvill Secker imprint on the 3rd July 2025. I read an advance preview eBook copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
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