The Girl in the Red Coat

The Girl in the Red Coat, a literary thriller by Kate Hamer, details the kidnapping of eight-year-old Carmel from a story-telling festival in England by an older man claiming to be her estranged grandfather. The story alternates between Carmel and her mother, Beth's points of view, covering the years of Carmel's disappearance. Hamer incorporates many paranormal and fairy tale elements into the novel, including a clear allusion to Little Red Riding Hood.

The novel begins in a quiet town in England, where eight-year-old Carmel and her single mother, Beth, live together. Carmel is curious, dreamy, and often defensive of her mother, whom she loves dearly though Beth is often over-protective, sometimes suffocating her young daughter. Adults claim to see something extraordinary in Carmel, who finds the adults around her and their assumptions about her strange behaviors and fascination with the color red amusing and dim-witted.

In her narrated chapter, Beth tells of eight years of premonitions, which she believes indicate that she will lose Carmel at some point in her life. Beth and her ex-husband Paul recently divorced when Paul left her for another woman. After the separation, Beth became particularly watchful of her daughter, whom she now fears losing more than ever.



Beth takes Carmel to a story-telling festival for a day of fun. Carmel and Beth end up in a particularly crowded tent run by a local bookstore, and in the madness of the crowd, Carmel disappears. Carmel is lured from the tent by a strange old man, claiming to be Carmel's grandfather, whom she has never met. The old man convinces Carmel to follow him, telling her that her mother has been injured in a horrible accident and that it is his responsibility as her grandfather to take care of her while her mother is recovering. Carmel believes the man, leaving Beth behind.

At this point, the story becomes half whodunnit, in which the reader questions the motives of this mysterious old man, and half literary thriller about the psychological implications of losing a young child. In Beth's chapters, she reveals her grief and the guilt she feels for losing Carmel and putting her in danger; she and her husband come back together not because of their love for each other, but because of their shared grief. Beth continues to get out of bed each morning and keep the house clean, but only as a coping mechanism to stave off the deep loneliness and sadness that she feels.

Meanwhile, Carmel tells the story of her life with the man she calls Grandad, who, no relation to her at all, has stolen her away because he believes that Carmel has the divine power to heal. Carmel finds him a strange man, but does not try to escape – Grandad has told her that her mother, Beth, is dead. Carmel is confused, troubled, and uncertain about her father's lack of interest in finding his only daughter.



Grandad and his girlfriend, Dorothy, take Carmel away to the United States, where meeting up with Dorothy's daughters, Melody and Silver, they travel from small town to small town, visiting religious sites and setting up shop as quasi-healers, with Carmel as their primary attraction. They raise cash at these events, and Carmel becomes a kind of sideshow freak. All the while, Carmel tries to hold on to her past as Grandad and Dorothy try to force her to forget her world before the kidnapping.

The story builds in suspense until the end, all the while drawing on the themes of identity, grief, and the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. Because of the alternating narration, both the kidnapped child and the grieving mother have a voice in this story, adding to the sense of both longing and the incredible sadness and suspense of the book.

Kate Hamer, a Welsh author of novels and short stories, won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2011. She has written two novels, The Girl in the Red Coat and The Doll Funeral. The Girl in the Red Coat was nominated for and received a number of honors, including Amazon Best Book of the Year in 2016, a British Book Industry Award finalist, a finalist for the Dagger Award, and a Costa Book Award finalist. Her books and stories often combine the dark with the childlike or magical, and include motifs of fairy tales and other children's stories.