A fictionalised account of the Lord Lucan case which remains as mysterious now as it did more than 40 years ago. The names are changed and while the protagonist is based on Sandra Rivett (the nanny who was brutally murdered at Lord Lucan's residence), there is much in the novel that we owe to the author’s imagination. The characters are vivid and we feel their sorrow and suffering and empathise with their plight. It’s a novel that’s difficult to put down once you start and I didn’t want it to end.

After a traumatic time involving giving up two children and psychiatric care Mandy River is ready to move forward. She arrives in London to work as a nanny with little training but lots of experience and is taken on by Lady Morven to look after her two children. Mandy is supported by her friend Rosemary, a Norland Nanny, and she falls for Neville, a local man. Life in the Morven household is chaotic with fragile Lady Morven in the midst of a bitter battle with her estranged husband, the glamorous gambling Lord Morven. Eventually this has to end in tragedy.
Dawson says that she wanted to write about Lord Lucan but wanted some artistic licence and here she has imagined characters grounded in fact but embellished with fiction. Mandy is a rather tragic character, Lady Morven hard to like and Lord Morven may or may not be a killer. The period touches are immaculate - contraception and sex, racism and fashion are handled brilliantly - the life of society and poverty in 1970s London is juxtaposed. There is a certain degree of floweriness to the writing in places but the sadness of all comes through.

The Language of Birds is a fictionalised retelling of the infamous Lord Lucan case and the murder of his nanny in the 1970s.

This is a beautiful book of an untold story. I didn't knew about the real life murder case so I read it without knowing what is going to happen to poor Mandy.
The characters are so well written, Lady Morven was absolutely flesh and bones in my eyes. The class difference is not as "in your face" but it's in the tone of the book, almost a background to the story.
The book has a melancholia, which I absolutely loved. It's poetic and beautifully written. I really adore Jill Dawson for writing the story of a woman who's been ignored for so long- in almost all news pieces following this tragedy.

Over the last year or so, I have read a few books on the Lucan murder. Not only the non-fiction account, “A Different Class of Murder,” by “Aiding and Abetting,” by Muriel Spark, and “A Double Life, by Flynn Berry. I highly recommend, “A Different Class of Murder,” found the Muriel Spark interesting, but not one of her best, and was impressed by, “A Double Life,” which looked at the fictional life of one of Lucan’s children, left with the legacy of her father’s disappearance.

Although the above books look at Lucan himself, his marriage, and his children, one person is often side-lined, and that is the nanny, Sandra Rivett, who was murdered in 1974. Author, Jill Dawson, attempts to put Sandra at the centre of this story, although names have been changed slightly. In this novel, Sandra becomes Mandy River, who comes to London, at the suggestion of her friend, Rosemary.

Using Mandy as the main character, Jill Dawson explores the Lucan’s toxic relationship, the effects of their children, and the constant battle that Lucan warred, to gain control of his children. Although the names are altered, Dawson does a good job of bringing Lord Lucan alive on the page; charming, reckless, volatile and intense. Meanwhile, Lady Morven, as she is called here, is emotional, child-like, disconnected, rambling and irrational.

Mandy feels sympathy for her employers vulnerability and a sense of responsibility to the children, which was, perhaps, beyond her years. Her loyalty ended in violence, but I think this is a moving and touching portrait of a family in crisis and the terrible consequences. A good read for book groups, as there is much to discuss.

The Language of Birds is a compelling retelling of the notorious Lord Lucan case. Lucan, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, disappeared in 1974 after being suspected of murdering his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett. I daresay peoples continued interest in this mystery stems from not knowing whether Lucan, also known as John Bingham, is alive or dead but as a body has yet to be discovered it has fed into many different conspiracy theories about what happened to him. Being a late 80s baby I wasn't too aware of the vibe and the way society worked during the decade this crime took place, however, Ms Dawson does a fantastic job of describing what was acceptable/unacceptable and the range of views from those present during the 1980s and does so in an eminently readable style.

There have been a plethora of books sensationalising the case but none of them are centred around the victim in all of this, Ms Rivett. Ms Dawson dedicates this novel to her and main character Mandy is formed around known information about her; for all intents and purposes, she's a warm, vivid character and most engaging to follow on her journey. I found that the 70s were described beautifully and Dawson explores the issue of class within the context of the story where the affluent family of Lord Lucan is contrasted with the poor, downtrodden nannies who moved in their droves from close-minded rural locations in search of freedom in the big city and better lives. This is a gripping yet sensitive tale which I enjoyed immensely.

Many thanks to Sceptre for an ARC.

In this imagined re-telling of Lord Lucan’s murder of his children’s nanny Sandra Rivett (to whom this novel is dedicated), Jill Dawson ensures that the reader has an excellent understanding of 1970s life: in the East Anglian Fens where Rosy and Mandy grow up and, equally, in the ‘toffs’ houses and in the local pub in West London where the girls socialise. Jill Dawson gives us carefully chosen period detail alongside typical attitudes of the day.
The novel focuses on Mandy, the fictionalised Sandra Rivett, desperate to escape her overbearing mother, despite the fact that she will be leaving her much loved little brother Peter behind. Her friend, Rosy, a Norland nanny whom she bonded with in the The Poplars institution, secures her a job looking after depressed Lady Morven’s children, James and Pamela. All three grow to rely on capable, cheerful, attractive Mandy and, whilst the atmosphere in the house is never completely relaxed, she makes their lives more bearable. However, the Machiavellian Lord Morven is never far away, and sometimes far too close for comfort. Whilst the reader will know the tragic outcome of this story, Jill Dawson keeps us hooked by her portrayal of the charismatic Mandy who does not just bring comfort to her household but also falls in love with Neville, a local barman who never judges her for her past decisions.
The depiction of Mandy’s friend Rosy is less successful. It is she who hears ‘the language of birds’. At times of stress they talk to her and her incarceration in The Poplars reminds us of her vulnerability, as well as working as a link to Mandy. Rosy is a useful narrative device – it is important that the reader sees Mandy through the eyes of a friend, albeit one who sometimes makes poor judgements, as well as through her employers and her family. However, in the final section of the novel when the focus is on Rosy’s speaking birds, her spiritualist church and her drab life back in the Fens, it’s difficult to know why we’re left with her, other than as a marked contrast to her bright friend, and to hear her acknowledge that Mandy ‘seemed more alive to me than other people’.
So, why does Mandy die, other than from being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Throughout the novel we are reminded that the 1970s was still very much a time of female subjugation, when the class system encouraged bullying and tyranny and domestic violence must happen only when a man had been tested to the limit. In looking at the murder from the nannies’ point of view rather than from the perpetrator, at last the women can speak, if only through fiction. Is it too fanciful to suggest that the title, using a 70s slang term for girls, celebrates this?
My thanks to NetGalley and Sceptre for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.