Book Review: The Killing Grounds by Joan Tierney

Genre: Horror

Age: Adult

Format: ebook

The Killing Grounds is a novella telling the story of Bina, a driver who ends up with a notorious serial killer dead in her vehicle, and discovers his possible connection to her missing mother. This prompts Bina to return to her hometown for the first time in years, to finally confront her family’s and community’s ghosts.

I actually think the lurid title of The Killing Grounds does this story a disservice. This is not a police procedural or crime thriller covering the hunt for the killer as you might think, as the killer dies in the first chapter; this story is about the grieving families left to pick up the pieces in the murderer’s wake. I give the book considerable credit just for that, as it is a perspective sadly neglected by both crime fiction and true crime media.

Writing this as a non-American, Bina’s hometown of Archer to me reads as a deconstruction of the idealised small-town America I’ve seen in US media my entire life. The town of Archer is insular and individualistic to the point that there is no real community, even among residents. It’s mentioned once off-handedly that Bina’s family is Jewish, a fact that is “politely ignored” by the rest of the town, on the understanding that if they ever began to display their Jewishness too openly they would find themselves decidedly less welcome.

There was enough sense of community to drive a serial killer from their midst decades earlier, but then he only became someone else’s problem. Anyone who has consumed any true crime media, be it podcasts or books, will be aware that police incompetence is a regular factor in enabling the murderer’s killing spree, but Archer’s distrust of the authorities meant that Robert Williams (The Killing Grounds murderer) led them to justify the idea that he would be killing vulnerable women still, just not in their town.

Another theme of the book is how it is the ones we love who can hurt us the most. Bina’s relationship with her father is emotionally distant, there is real love there but neither knows how to reach the other. Bina’s young niece, Abby, demonstrates the cyclical nature of generational trauma. Abby is also motherless, her father (Bina’s brother) is in prison for said mother’s murder.

There is a numb acceptance of horrible things, that people are “just the way they are”. Bina’s father failed in many ways as a father and husband, but it’s just the way he is. Abby’s father didn’t mean to kill her mother, they abused each other all the time, it was just a bad relationship. And Bina’s mother ran away, that was just who she was, she was just unfortunate enough to meet Robert Williams on her way.

Her mother’s absence has left a gaping wound in Bina, understandably, but it is also made clear that she was not a good mother when she was present. She was abusive in her own ways, and she was sorry for it, but that does not take the harm away. It’s an uncomfortable fact that there are no perfect victims, and The Killing Grounds demonstrates this beautifully. It is made clear that Bina’s mother was deeply mentally ill and troubled, which is what made her such a ripe victim for Williams. In real life, there’s a reason sex workers, addicts, and homeless people are the most common victims of these killers. They are vulnerable, they lack support systems, and they are less likely to be noticed missing.

I have taken a while to write this review as The Killing Grounds provides a lot to chew on. Considering that it clocks in at less than 100 pages, it holds an incredible amount of emotional depth. It is melancholic and provides no easy answers, but there is hope within if you look for it. The bad guys can be stopped and the cycles can end if we make it so.

Review by Dai Baddley

I purchased this book.