Cath Staincliffe

The police begin their investigation, but they don’t get very far at first. Luke’s injuries have put him in a coma, so he can’t be helpful in identifying the attackers. And Jason’s parents Andrew and Val can’t be helpful either. They didn’t see Jason’s attackers clearly, so they can’t identify them. That leaves the people who were riding the bus when the attack started, so the police do their best to find out who those people were.In the meantime, Emma hasn’t gone to the police voluntarily, although she could be very helpful. She’s ashamed of herself and feels guilty for doing nothing to stand up to the bullies. But from Emma’s perspective, it’s not straightforward at all. Emma’s been bullied all her life, first at home, then at school and now, she even comes in for some bullying at work. She has almost no self-confidence and her main goal is to call as little attention to herself as possible.

Little by little, the police gather evidence about the fight, about Luke and about Jason. It turns out that Luke wasn’t a random choice of victim. He’d been in trouble before and the bullies know him. The police also find out who Emma is, and over time they learn what she knows.

One of the main elements in the novel is the devastation left behind when someone is killed or badly injured. Andrew and Val Barnes have to cope with the intolerable grief of losing their son, and that loss takes an extremely heavy toll. Luke’s mother Louise and sister Ruby have to face the fact hat Luke is in a coma and might not recover from it. And Emma has live with the reality that she didn’t do anything to prevent the attack.

That doesn’t mean though that there is no hope whatsoever in the story. At the same time as lives are upended, we also see a slow and very painful journey towards moving on with life. I think I can say without spoiling the story that the characters do find ways to cope, and there are flashes of warmth.

Because this is very much a character-driven story, we see several points of view presented. There’s Emma’s, there’s Andrew Barnes’, there’s Val’s, and there’s Louise Murray’s. Readers who prefer just one point of view and just one chronologically-based approach to telling the story will notice this. But that said, each part of the story is clearly identified with the name of the character whose point of view is being shared.

Another important element in the story is the set of questions it raises. The reader is invited to think about what happens when you have only an instant to decide whether to intervene in a situation. Would you speak up? Why didn’t anyone but Jason intervene in this situation? Was it right for him to intervene, given it cost him his life? And of course there’s the saddest question: could Luke and Jason have been saved if someone had spoken up?

One of the most important set of questions the novel raises is about bullying. As the story moves on, we learn a bit about Jason and Luke’s attackers. We also learn about the behaviour of Emma Curtis and the other people on the bus. Without preaching (at least I didn’t feel preached to), Staincliffe explores the question of how bullying starts and how and why it continues. One the one hand most of us would agree that bullying must not be tolerated and those who bully must be held accountable. On the other hand, bullies don’t appear out of nowhere. So a society (even a social group) in which there is bullying needs to ask itself what it is that tacitly or otherwise allows bullying within that group.

Split Second takes place in the UK city of Withington and Staincliffe does place the reader there. But the sad fact is, the bullying and what follows it could have happened just about anywhere. It’s a nearly universal issue and Staincliffe makes that clear too.

Split Second is the story of a group of people brought together by a tragic and sadly believable series of incidents. It explores important questions of bullying, of personal choice, and of what leads up to our decisions. The novel is character-driven and follows believable and very human characters as they struggle with devastation.

Review by Margot Kinberg, Confessions of a Mystery Writer