Anatomy of a scandal (by Sarah Vaughan)

(Amazon UK link)

I hadn’t previously read anything by Sarah Vaughan. And I very much doubt if I would have picked up her novel ‘Anatomy of a scandal’ if I had seen it on a stall; the cover is mainly black and it looks like a thriller. Really not my favourite genre. However, it was allocated for this month’s local reading group, and I was able to find it from ‘World of Books’ last year. I didn’t start reading it until a few days ago, but it wasn’t difficult to finish it in just three days despite it being nearly 400 pages.

The chapters are mostly short, each one head by the name of the viewpoint character and the date in which the chapter is set. This is helpful, as the timeline switches to the past fairly often, as the story unfolds. It opens in the ‘present’ of the novel, 2nd December 2016. Kate is the viewpoint character here; she’s a barrister who has just lost a case. 

We see her surroundings, feel her frustration. And she makes it clear that her wig and gown help her into the role that she plays in court. She tries only to prosecute when she’s pretty sure the defendant is guilty, but she knows that the system isn’t perfect: that what matters more than truth is the way it’s painted by the lawyers.

Chapter two, around six weeks earlier, introduces us to Sophie. She’s married to an MP called James, and they have a fairly luxurious lifestyle. They have two young children whom they both adore, and James is a good father. He’s also been a good husband, on the whole, though she knows he was highly promiscuous ten years earlier, including during their engagement. But as far as she knows, he became monogamous when he married her. 

Sophie knows that James - like most politicians - is adept at spinning the truth, at leaving things out deliberately, at skewing statistics or ideas for the sake of the public. But until now, she believes he’s been honest with her.  Then he arrives home, stressed and drawn, and lets her know that he’s been having an affair with one of his colleagues for the past five months. It’s over, he assures her, and he loves his family. But the story is going to break in the newspapers, so he wants Sophie to know from him. He seems to be penitent, knowing he was wrong, and also somewhat concerned about his future. But he and the prime minister, Tom, are best buddies and he hopes it will blow over.

And that’s what seems to be happening, until James is arrested on suspicion of rape. Kate - of the first chapter - is the barrister allocated to prosecution, and she is certain he is guilty. He’s privileged, white, smooth-talking… the kind of person who, she knows, will often be vindicated even if there’s a lot of evidence against him. 

Quite a bit of the story is taken up with the court case, with some quite detailed statements from witnesses, including the colleague who had the affair. But as well as this moving forward, there are flashbacks to 1993, mainly focussing on a girl called Holly from a working class background who was thrilled to find herself in Oxford, finally able to admit that she likes to study and to read books, without being bullied for it. 

Holly finds it hard to fit into the cliques that are mainly public-school educated wealthy folk but is befriended by Alison, who I thought was the most likeable person in the book, though she doesn’t have a huge presence. Holly also gets to know Sophie, who is her study partner; this is good background, as we see Sophie not just as a betrayed wife, but as rather self-centred and privileged; she’s carelessly pleasant to Holly, but doesn’t invite her anywhere, and as the months go by Holly does more and more of the work, while Sophie is out partying. 

The writing is cleverly done, showing connections in the past and the present, building up the story slowly so that I had no idea whether James had or had not committed the crime, and also no idea whether he was going to be found guilty or not.  There’s more description than I like - nicely done, but detracting from the story, so I often skimmed the descriptive passages as I was eager to find out what was happening.

This kind of novel is plot-driven; some of the characters are rather two-dimensional, and the only one I actually liked was Alison. In a character-driven book I find it important to relate to - or at least feel sympathy for - one or more of the main characters. It doesn’t matter so much in a thriller. The main characters are all quite distinct, but even Kate comes across as quite hard and very ambitious.  There are extenuating circumstances, as we learn later in the book, but I still never particularly liked her. 

I found some of the scenes at university quite hard to swallow: having had friends and relatives at Oxford University, I couldn’t quite reconcile their experiences with the depravity and debauchery that seems to pervade the 1990s section of the story.  Yet the author herself says that she, rather like Holly, was a student at Oxford in that era, so I assume that some of the shocking scenes were at least somewhat based on her experiences.

There are a lot of important issues raised: about what constitutes consent; about the reality of classism even in the 1990s, and casual prejudice; about how far truth must be told, and where it’s acceptable to skew facts, or suppress information. It also raises a very important question of the impact violent crime can have on its victims even decades later. None of these issues are straightforward, and there’s a lot that’s thought-provoking in the book. 

Given the nature of the plot, I was relieved that there wasn’t too much that was explicit. On the other hand, I was a tad irritated that there were so many instances of ‘strong’ language - or, rather, one word in particular which recurred more frequently than any other. But apparently this word is used that much, rather unimaginatively in my opinion, in some sectors of society. 

I was a bit shocked when I turned the last page and discovered that it was the ending of the book; it felt rather sudden. But I think, on reflection, that it was perhaps the only way it could have ended. 

I’m glad I read it, but think it unlikely that I’ll want to read this again. Recommended for people who like this kind of psychological thriller that has tension in the plot, but no ongoing terror. 

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