Toto Amongst the Murderers, Sally J. Morgan

1973, from art school to shared housing in run-down Leeds, and Jude (aka Toto) is a chaotic, wild child, living a reckless, slightly crazy life, thoroughly enjoying her youth, blissfully unconnected with the news of random attacks on woman that keep showing up on the news.

What a wild ride TOTO AMONG THE MURDERERS was - it could leave the reader with a decided longing for the good old mad, bad, crazy days of teenage-hood, when you could get away with hitchhiking, moving from share house to share house, wandering about with little idea of where you were going or what you'd end up doing. Or it could leave readers wondering how the hell previous generations survived. Especially when the casual references to Fred and Rosemary West are thrown into the mix.

Beautifully executed this coming of age story, combined with thriller aspects, was really a roller-coaster. Toto is a great character, mad, wild, restless, seemingly without a care in the world, or a foot in reality. Yet she sees things like the plight of neighbour Janice; and what her boyfriend's behaviour is doing to her best friend Nel.

It seems there's some fact behind the fiction here, involving the author and her own personal encounters with the West's, so it's not hard to believe that a fair amount of this novel is influenced by personal experience. Having said that, the West encounter is kind of less important overall than the coming of age aspects that the young women - Jude and her friend Nel in particular - experience. The story of friendship, self-preservation, love and respect for others really shines through. The way that they hang onto the things that matter in the face of a heap of obstacles - from the sorts of no-future jobs girls had to put up with then; share houses and the problems of flatmates from hell; idiot boyfriends; dysfunctional families; rang very true and made for really engaging reading.

Where TOTO AMONG THE MURDERERS really shone, actually glowed with the light of determination and gloriousness, is in the way it illuminated young women, as they really are. With all the doubts, thoughts, feelings, and desires. Reckless, clever, daft as a brush, brave and crazy. The whole thing is not just beautifully executed and car crash fascinating, it's very reaffirming in a most unexpected manner.