Throw Me to the Wolves by Patrick McGuinness

March 7, 2020 Kirsty Hanson

Throw Me to the Wolves is another book that I had to read for my MA Creative Writing course. I was actually supposed to meet Patrick McGuinness, but it had to be cancelled due to current happenings in the world. Even though I haven’t really enjoyed the core texts of the course, the secondary reading has been surprisingly enjoyable!

The body of a young woman is found by the river Thames, and a neighbor, a retired teacher from Chapleton College, is arrested. An eccentric loner—intellectual, shy, a fastidious dresser with expensive tastes—he is the perfect candidate for a media monstering.

In custody he is interviewed by two detectives: the circumspect Ander, and his workaday foil, Gary. Ander is particularly watchful now, because the man across the table is someone he knows—someone he hasn’t seen in nearly thirty years. Determined to salvage the truth as ex-pupils and colleagues line up against the accused, he must face a story from decades back, from his own time as a Chapleton student, at the peak of anti-Irish sentiment.

Patrick McGuinness is a man of many talents. Poet, literary critic, and author, he was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2011 for his first novel, The Last Hundred Days and has won accolades for his poetry, such as 19th Century Blues, which won the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition in 2006.

“It’s not the machines that frighten me… it’s the people becoming avatars on the end of them – no longer quite human, like some new kind of centaur breed: half flesh and half… touch-screen, Twitter-handle, gaming name.”

His second novel – Throw Me to the Wolves – is based on the 2010 murder of Joanna Yeates, whose body was found on the roadside during the Christmas period. Those who are familiar with the murder case will instantly know the twists and turns that are scattered throughout the novel. Throw Me to the Wolves follows two storylines: the murder of Zalie Dyer, and also the mystery of the high-school. The reader follows Ander who is a cop investigating the murder of Dyer, and we soon find out that he was a student of the main suspect – Mr. Wolphram (who is based on the real life main suspect, Christopher Jefferies).

The murder case also inspired by the ITV television show: The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, which details how Jefferies was villainised by the media and how he was automatically portrayed to be the killer even though he was innocent. The TV drama is a two-parter that was written by Peter Morgan and was directed by Roger Michell who was a student of Jefferies.

“Defiance is always a good look, but you ned to know when to stop before you over-defy and start to break.”

Patrick McGuinness was taught by Jefferies and it is blatantly evident that he had first had experience with Jefferies’ teaching through his writing. The story itself is beautifully written, with beautifully haunting techniques but the character of Gary juxtaposes the idea of the story, with the hilarious one-liners such as “there’s a bloke describing himself as ‘Husky, dusky and musky’, which Gary says sounds like Snow White’s three sex-offender dwarves.”

The one thing that seems quite tenuous is that the novel has been marketed as a post-Brexit novel, however, there are no indications of this, no political issues that advocate it is set in post-Brexit times. I wonder why it was marketed this way, when there is only one brief mention of Brexit throughout the entire novel.

“Death was the landlord who came in with the master key sometimes when we were out, for maintenance or to check the inventory, but basically left us to it until the contract was up.”

Throw Me to the Wolves is an enjoyable read that explores how much power the media actually has over every day events, and how it can do more harm than good. The use of two time-periods to show two different crimes happenings and how they unravel is such a brilliant way of telling the story. With McGuinness’s beautiful, lyrical writing style, vivd descriptions, and stereotypical, dry British humour, Throw Me to the Wolves proves to be a novel that will stay with the reader for a long time.