Wardini Book Review: The Briar Club – Kate Quinn (Harper Collins, $36.99)

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (Harper Collins, $36.99).

BOOK REVIEW written by Louise Ward, co-owner of Wardini Books.

It’s 1954 in Washington DC, Briarwood House is stirring, excited to find that a drama is unfurling within its walls. There has been a murder in the second attic apartment, and 17 people are in the kitchen in various states of distress. One of them is the murderer.

Cut to four years earlier. Mrs Nilsson rents out rooms in her rambling home to female boarders. This way, the single mother keeps her head above water, looking forward to the day when her teenage son, Pete, and needy little daughter, Lina, can pull their financial weight. Pete looks out for Lina, writes letters to an absent father who never replies, and falls in innocent love with a variety of the boarders.

Enter Mrs Grace March: confident, creative, and mysterious. Whilst Pete falls in love, Grace unpacks her meagre belongings and begins to draw together the disparate borders: young, ambitious Nora, old and grumpy Mrs Muller and bouncy British Fliss.

The Briar Club is formed – a weekly dinner in Grace’s tiny room on the one night when the disapproving Mrs Nilsson is out.

The book is in parts, each main protagonist taking a turn at surprising the reader as they unravel their story. There’s much more to Reka Muller than an impoverished Hungarian refugee, more backbone than expected to sweet Nora.

Does Grace have an agenda other than forming a community out of the goodness of her heart?

Kate Quinn’s writing puts us firmly in an America in the midst of “The Red Scare”, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade to rid America of card-carrying communists, the witch hunt that would lead to his downfall. The sense of being watched by the house, by Mrs Nilsson, and by government forces pervades the novel, creating tension and mystery.

The characters and their situations are expertly set up as the reader sits within the walls of the house, immersed in the stories swirling around its rooms.

It’s a fascinating read with the right blend of romance, unease, and action to keep the reader riveted to the end.