Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz is a crime novel with a difference that rocked my foundations. The story flies in the face of the usual crime fiction structure. It is told from the point of view of an eighteen year old protagonist who tells us early on that she only has weeks to live. She continues telling the story after her murder.

Maybe the people who appear brave are merely doing the thing they have to do. It’s not a matter of courage, then, to pack up and leave a life. Just a lack of any other option, and the sudden realization you probably don’t have anything left to lose.

Two women separately go to New York, arriving on the same day. Eighteen year old Alice Lee has fled a relationship with a lecherous school teacher, stealing his camera. Australian, Ruby, is escaping an affair with a colleague who is engaged to someone else. 

How many times does politeness keep us rooted to the spot? We stand on the brink, making a choice whether to tip over into trust or disgust, and we remember all our training, the lifetime of it. The doctrine of nice, the fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

Alice and Ruby’s paths cross when Ruby is out running along the Hudson River on a stormy day and finds Alice’s body in the water at the rivers edge. Ruby soon realises she must find out what happened to Alice, not let her just disappear and be forgotten. She joins a Death Club to meet and be supported by others who have been up close and personal to death.

The thing is. When the dead speak back, we are seldom loud enough to be heard over the clamour of all that living going on.

Before You Knew My Name is a feminist novel about gender power imbalance, loneliness, love, sex, shame, mortality and the ordinary human fears that result from our vulnerability. It is also something of a commentary on the standard ‘dead girl’ story, because it makes us look at, and know the victim, something crime novels seldom do. It is rare that the dead girl gets to tell her story and be seen as a whole person.