Nasty Little Cuts centres on events that take place in the early hours of one Christmas Eve between married couple, Debs and Marc. Debs comes downstairs to find what she initially perceives to be an intruder in her kitchen, but it isn’t, it’s her husband with a knife, and things unfold from there.
The novel takes the form of lots of short chapters, with the minute-by-minute action of Christmas Eve morning interspersed with flashback chapters giving insights into the family history leading up to the Christmas Eve events.
I was left in two minds about this book. There’s no doubting that Tina Baker has a talent for creating suspense as well as realistic, relatable characters – I particularly liked the down to earth humour of Debs, her sister Kelly and their mum, Shirley, and was intrigued by the sparse depictions of Marc’s side of the family.
On the other hand, I just found this all a bit gruelling to read. It was clear from the outset that there was going to be a descent into violence of some sort, and between the flashback chapters showing the gradual disintegration of a marriage and the real-time drama around who would make it out of the story alive/well, I just found it all a bit much. I had quite quickly had enough of the Debs and Marc pairing and just started rooting for their kids and Lulu, the dog, to come out of the whole saga unscathed.
I would like to read more by Tina Baker in the future; she is skilled at breathing life into her characters and not flinching from describing the small, every day details that make us human. This story was just a little heavy-going for me.
Still Got Manners 