It Could Never Happen Here: A perfect read for fans of Motherland and Catastrophe

This is the third novel by Eithne Shortall which I’ve enjoyed, and I suspect this is the best yet! Glass Lake is a lovely place to live with an exceptional primary school; of course this is mainly due to the hard work of the PTA whose inner core is knows as the ‘Lakers’. Beverley Franklin is the woman at the top of that particular pyramid and she will do anything to protect the reputation of the school. This year, the popular school musical is to be broadcast on television – thanks to Beverley’s contacts and hard work – but when a potential impropriety involves her own daughter, she goes overboard in aiming to preventing a scandal and totally misses a lot of what is really going on, both at school and at home . . . Right from the very beginning, I knew this was going to be a superb read as I settled in to the story very quickly. As a former member of a PTA, there was a familiar feeling about the characters and the situation and there is a LOT going on. This is a tale which is bang up-to-date in today’s world, unfolding little by little while keeping the reader enthralled and protecting it’s secrets to the very end. I had no way of predicting what was going to happen and I was stunned and amazed at more than one of the confessions along the way. An utterly fantastic read – one I’m delighted to recommend and which so easily earns all five brilliant stars!

It Could Never Happen Here immediately breaks the picture perfect image of a community primary school by starting the action at a police station following the discovery of a body in a river, so the reader is given something to think about at the earliest possible stage of the story; whose body is it and how/why did they die? We then go back a fortnight to see what happened in the days leading up to the big theatre show, establishing sub-plots such as the business with the stolen cat as well as the main plot which focuses on Beverley Franklin (who will do whatever it takes to protect her local school's reputation, but soon has to deal with a scandal involving her own daughter which threatens to derail the annual school musical's appearance on national TV). The story is told from the parental point of view and deals with serious issues such as cyber safety and drink driving, but the writing style is easy to follow while the extracts from police witness statements and interviews act as both a useful characterisation and narrative device in terms of breaking up the story nicely. The chapters aren't too long and are split over several characters and different time frames to give multiple points of view, while themes such as children living their parents dream for them may resonate with readers.

From the moment I read the blurb for this book I knew that I would enjoy it and as soon as I read the first few pages I was hooked. The book starts with a mysterious death and a series of police interviews. Set in a small town in Ireland, where the biggest gossips are the school parents, this causes a shock to rip through the town. The book alternates between the current timeframe with the police interviews and a return to the days leading up to the death. From the viewpoints of a number of characters we learn more information about the secrets of the Cooney residents as the book goes on. I loved the author's writing style and the pace of the book. Each time I had a new theory I was surprised as the author clearly had the reader guessing things exactly at the time that she wanted us to guess. I thought it was a great book with a well thought out, believable plot. I would thoroughly recommend it.