What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena review

About The Book

Book: What Have You Done?
Author: Shari Lapena
Standalone or Series: Standalone
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date (UK): 16th July 2024

My Review

This is the third book I’ve read by Shari Lapena. The first was The Couple Next Door, and then I picked up a signed and dedicated copy of Everyone Here Is Lying after attending a panel at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in 2023.

The story opens with a local farmer discovering a wake of vultures in one of his fields. As he gets closer, he realises the birds are feasting on the naked, dead body of a teenage girl.

We are then introduced to many of the families and individuals who live in the sleepy town of Fairhill. Although the novel frequently switches between characters and narratives, you are always reminded who they are by their relationships or professions within the first few sentences of each perspective shift, making it easy to follow without feeling overwhelmed by the large cast.

The book will keep you guessing about the killer’s identity, as there are many plausible suspects. I thought the story was told extremely well. Crime can often be glamorised – I recently saw a descriptor for a true crime documentary on a streaming service labelled as “riveting,” which felt rather insensitive.

The victim, Diana, is harassed by men of various ages and in different areas of her life. You really feel for her and what she endures.

I think a lot of women reading this will be able to identify with the unsettling reality Diana faces. As a first-year university student, I was the only one left in my ground-floor flat over the festive period, as my usual flatmates had gone home and I stayed for a Christmas job. One evening, I heard the main door unlock. When I went to check, it was a member of the front desk staff, who apologised, saying his shower had broken and he thought he could use one in my flat. I asked him to leave and reported the incident to my university. Following an investigation, he was dismissed from his position.

The book adds a haunting layer to Diana’s narrative, inspired by ghost stories, as we hear her lament that she never lived long enough to simply become ordinary – to blend in and just be.

I thought this was done incredibly well.