THE BEACH HUT
Leah Pitt
Hodder & Stoughton (hodder.co.uk)
£9.99
Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop
In the summer of 1997, 15-year-old Matilda is killed in what seems to be a tragic accident, slipping on rocks on the Dorset beach where she holidays with her parents. Her best friend, Sophie, has been holidaying in one of the neighbouring beach huts for as long as she can remember; following Matilda’s death, Sophie is wracked with guilt – if she hadn’t been too busy with a boy, she might have been with her friend, and the outcome might have been very different. Following Matilda’s death, the beach huts are sold off, or rented out to holidaymakers as the original owners try to put as much distance between themselves and this terrible tragedy as possible. Now, twenty years later, Sophie is back on the beach. Her father is recently dead, and her mother is now living on the continent with a new boyfriend; Sophie is on administrative leave from work, is going through a separation from her husband, who has taken a job in Japan, and is here to clear out the hut and get it ready to sell. When she finds a small silver tin, that fateful summer of twenty years earlier comes rushing back, and Sophie begins to wonder if Matilda’s death was actually an accident. When strange things begin to happen, she is more convinced than ever that she is right.
Leah Pitt’s debut novel, The Beach Hut, has all the hallmarks of the summer blockbuster thriller: intrigue, misdirection and a hook that will keep you turning the pages; it’s even set on the beach, so it’s perfect for those long lazy summer days by the seaside…if they ever arrive! Unfortunately, these can only take a mystery novel so far, and Pitt’s novel lacks one key element to make it a sure-fire winner: a likeable and engaging protagonist. For the most part, the story is told from Sophie’s point of view, with random chapters devoted to the points of view of other people – all of whom will be suspects at some point during the story. As well as the viewpoint-hopping, the story also jumps between Sophie’s present day and the summer of 1997, when everything changed for Sophie, and for everyone on the beach.
The Beach Hut has a good, solid hook: Matilda’s death was ruled an accident at the time, despite Sophie and others feeling that she knew the rocks on which she died better than anyone. The reason for Matilda being alone on the rocks when she died is shrouded in mystery, though we know from the beginning that Sophie feels guilty about this; we’ll find out why as the story progresses and we learn more about what happened on The Night Of. The contents of the small silver tin are obviously important, since Matilda took the time to hide it before she died (though there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for her to have done this), but neither Sophie nor Kip – Matilda’s cousin, and fifteen-year-old Sophie’s crush – can determine why. The longer Sophie stays on the beach, the more it becomes obvious that someone doesn’t want her around, lending some weight to the idea that foul play had a hand to play all those years ago.
The biggest issue I had with the novel, and it’s difficult to work out if it was intentional or not, is that fact that Sophie doesn’t quite work. The teenager we meet in 1997 is exactly the same as the woman we meet in the present day, by which I mean that despite the passage of twenty years, there has been no emotional maturity, no development. It’s the same selfish, self-centred, irrational teenage mind in both bodies, which leads to some frustrating irrational jumps of logic that should never have been made, but which serve to move the story along, or improve our understanding of the mystery at its heart. Without wanting to come over all Annie Wilkes, it sometimes feels like we’re being cheated, and that the story would have been better served by a more mature, more developed Sophie.
That said, it’s not a complete loss – it’s a well-written story with a well-developed mystery at its core. It could do with one or two fewer “big events” happening during one week-long period which all, like dominoes, lead to the explanation of Matilida’s death, in an almost too-neat fashion. But it’s solid enough, and stands up to scrutiny, and will keep the reader guessing throughout: there are enough people who were on the beach in 1997 still around to make it a challenge to every amateur armchair sleuth. Pitt has an excellent sense of place, and a wonderful understanding of the teenage mindset, and has already mastered the art of drip-feeding the reader information as they need it. For me, the only thing that let the story down was the voice of the person telling it.
In all, The Beach Hut is a strong and entertaining debut full of twists and turns. It’s a gripping read, for the most part, with some scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat. I’m intrigued enough to want to see what Pitt has up her sleeve for her second novel. The Beach Hut is a fine beach read – you could do much worse at the airport bookshop – and puts Leah Pitt firmly on the radar.
