THE GOSLING GIRL: a crime thriller where bigotry might be the real killer

Michelle Cameron, the central figure in Jacqueline Roy’s The Gosling Girl, was found guilty of murdering a child half her age when she was 10 years old. Cameron is Black; the victim, Kerry Gosling, was white. Cameron is released from a Young Offenders Institute as an adult into a strange new world with a new identity. A chance meeting with a woman Cameron befriended while detained – Lucy Fields, now an addict and prostitute – brings more problems: Lucy is soon after found dead, with Cameron becoming the prime suspect.

DC Natalie Tyler, a Black police officer, is assigned to Cameron as the latter’s identity is leaked to the press. Tyler has her own demons to slay while trying to keep Cameron safe. There is also Zoe Laing on the scene: a journalist and psychologist, Laing is researching and writing Cameron’s life story to try and understand why a child committed such a brutal crime against another child.

The Gosling Girl is a tense, humane story that encompasses betrayal, class, racial stereotyping, judicial prejudice and media-fuelled hate, raising many poignant questions. Is Michelle Cameron actually the victim in this story? Author Jacqueline Roy perfectly captures marginalised people trying to claw their way back from the edge of an abyss; it cries out for a big-screen, Steve McQueen-directed adaption.