Review: BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME

BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME by Jacqueline Bublitz (Allen & Unwin, 2021)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

This is not just another novel about a dead girl. When she arrived in New York on her 18th birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city's latest Jane Doe, an unidentified murder victim.

Ruby Jones is also trying to start over; she travelled halfway around the world only to find herself lonelier than ever. Until she finds Alice's body by the Hudson River.

From this first, devastating encounter, the two women form an unbreakable bond. Alice is sure that Ruby is the key to solving the mystery of her life - and death. And Ruby - struggling to forget what she saw that morning - finds herself unable to let Alice go. Not until she is given the ending she deserves.

It’s a scene any viewer of New York crime dramas like Law & Order, Blue Bloods, or Castle is pretty familiar with: a young woman’s body is found by a passerby, then the featured cops swoop in and we follow their story the rest of the episode as they uncover whodunnit. The witness and the victim become periphery, even if the story began with them. 

In first-time novelist Jacqueline Bublitz’s stunning debut BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME, she deftly upturns and plays with those familiar ‘pretty dead girl’ tropes.

Two women looking to ‘make a brand new start of it’ in the Big Apple: Alice Lee is an eighteen-year-old fleeing Midwest family tragedy and bad decisions with a controlling older man; Ruby Jones is a single thirtysomething from Australia looking to reinvent herself after an affair with a soon-to-be-married man. Two women searching for something, perhaps themselves, whose lives intersect in a tragic way. A few weeks after her arrival in Manhattan, Ruby is running through a morning storm in Riverside Park when she’s shocked to discover the body of a young woman sprawled on the rocks. Police, crime scene tape, detectives, blunt force trauma and strangulation. Ruby can’t let it go, needs to find out more about the unidentified young woman, reduced to ‘Jane Doe’, and any progress in finding her killer.

Meanwhile Alice Lee watches on as the husk of who she was slots into the daily routines of those who deal with the dead. Another tragedy in New York City, splashed across newspapers for a while, before everyone else moves on. Almost everyone. Could Ruby Jones be the key to finding Alice’s killer?

Debut author Jacqueline Bublitz delivers a beguiling, astonishing tale that deep dives into the victim and the witness and who they are or were; this time it’s the cops who are bit players. There’s an enchanting warmth to this tale sparked by a horrifying deed. Rich characterization of female lives and fears and desires. Beautifully written, BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME is a sublime novel – it’s easy to see why it’s already won and been shortlisted for several major awards. A triumph.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer who's interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals on three continents. He's been a judge of Australian, Scottish, and NZ crime writing awards, and is co-founder of Rotorua Noir. He's the author of the HRF Keating award-shortlisted non-fiction book SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, and series editor of acclaimed anthology DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER. You can heckle him on Twitter.