THE UNSPEAKABLE ACTS OF ZINA PAVLOU by Eleni Kyriacou

THE UNSPEAKABLE ACTS OF ZINA PAVLOU

Eleni Kyriacou (elenikwriter.com)

Head of Zeus (headofzeus.com)

£14.99

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Eva Georgiou is a Greek immigrant living in London with her husband. At night she works the coat check in the Café de Paris, and her name is on the Metropolitan Police’s list as a Greek translator/interpreter. Late one July night in 1954, Eva is roused from her bed and brought to the local police station where she meets Zina Pavlou, a middle-aged Greek woman who speaks no English and who has been accused of murdering her daughter-in-law. As the case progresses, Eva grows closer to the older woman, unsure whether to think her capable of the heinous crime of which she has been accused, until Zina lets slip that this is not the first time she has faced a trial for murder. Eva is convinced Zina is mentally ill, and grabs onto this as a possible means of saving her from the noose, but the court – and Zina herself – may have a different view.

British people of a certain age will know the name Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in Britain – but Pierrepoint’s previous female victim is less well-known. Eleni Kyriacou’s latest novel is based on that woman’s story, the facts of her tale weaved artfully through the story of the fictional Zina Pavlou. For five months from the violent death of her daughter-in-law, Hedy, Zina is subjected to misogyny and racism, with people mistaking her inability to speak English as stupidity. From the outset the whole world seems to be against her, her letters to friends and family going unanswered, the wardens in the prison making fun; Eva, it seems, is the only person in her corner, which makes both of them feel very lonely.

In Eva Georgiou and Zina Pavlou, Eleni Kyriacou has created two characters who will burrow under the reader’s skin and make themselves comfortable. Eva is still recovering from the loss of a baby, which has put a strain on her marriage, and makes her susceptible to Zina’s predicament; she becomes too attached, and finds herself in Holloway every day visiting the older woman, even when she isn’t being paid to be there. She sees something in Zina that makes her want to save her, and does her best to guide her through the process that could lead to her execution. Zina herself is a complex character that it is difficult to get a good handle on throughout the book. In flashbacks that cover the year before the murder of Hedy Pavlou, we see Zina’s arrival in London, where she immediately moves in with her son, his wife and their two children. Zina is a stereotypical interfering mother-in-law and before long there is tension between the two women. For the reader it is difficult to pick a side: both women have their faults, and neither is willing to give an inch. Poor Michalis is stuck in the middle, but it’s no surprise to anyone but Zina that he will always choose his wife and children over his mother.

From the book’s blurb we have a fair idea of how Zina’s story is going to end, but Kyriacou manages to maintain the tension throughout. Our inability to get a good reading on Zina makes us want to know what happens to her, and through her eyes we see the hostile world around her: people who mock her and whisper about how she should learn the language, thinking her stupid, uncultured, little more than a peasant. What stings the most is her treatment at the hands of her son and daughter-in-law: she is little more than a housemaid, only allowed to spend time with her granddaughter when it suits them, and not allowed to spend time with her baby grandson at all. She is banned from observing her religious rituals: no icons, burning candles, incense. Despite the difficulty we have in trying to guess if she is guilty or not, Kyriacou deftly puts us on Zina’s side: the woman we meet in the aftermath of this terrible crime seems vastly different from the nagging mother-in-law that is presented in the flashbacks. More than anything else, though, it is because Eva believes her innocent that we want it to be true.

Eleni Kyriacou shines a light on what it means to be a foreigner in London in the mid-1950s and uses the terrible murder of Hedy Pavlou to do so. The revelation of what actually happened that fateful July night in 1954, when it comes, is as shocking as Hedy’s death itself. It’s a cleverly-constructed masterstroke from a writer of immense talent. This is character-driven crime fiction at its finest, an excellent novel that invites the reader to become involved in this intimate relationship between these two women, and makes our involvement worthwhile in so many ways. I had no idea what to expect going in to Eleni Kyricou’s The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou; now, I can’t recommend it highly enough.