Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk

i knew nothing about this case and decided to not look it up & simply read the book. The writing was in itself quite incredible, mesmerising and almost dreamlike. I actually read it very quickly as i couldnt put it down. The author went into very intense details about the girls and boy involved in this case so you had a sence of who they were prior to the murder. The why this awful crime happened is really left to the reader to understand via the dynamics of the group. i would highly recommend this book.

Under the Bridge is a true crime book about the murder of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk in Canada in 1997. Being in the UK and my teens in that year I don’t remember the case so this crime story was all new to me and I wanted to wait until I had finished the book before Googling it.At the beginning, we are told that the information within is derived from author interviews, observations, official records, and court proceedings. We are also told that some names and details have been changed and conversations re-created.The novel opens with the search for Reena Virk and her body being discovered in the Gorge, floating amongst the reeds. We then move on to the teenagers who lived in the small town of View Royal Canada and detailed information on all of them. Some had something to do with her death others merely knew the victim and her killers.The book is split into five parts including the kill, the killers, the police investigation, the trial, and information on what has happened since. This is a harrowing story of teenagers, mainly girls – 6 girls, and 1 boy murdering another teenager. The circumstances and the lives of these people are stranger than any fiction book could recreate. The why Reena Virk was killed could have been for several reasons and some are given in the book.Under the Bridge was an insightful and eye-opening story that followed a senseless murder by teenagers who wanted to be gangsters. It looks at everything from all angles and the information comes across clearly. The writing style took some getting used to and the first part which was a ‘getting-to-know-everyone’ section did bore me a little but without this, the rest may have been harder to understand.Overall, Reena’s story deserves to be told and I was fascinated and amazed by the amount of research the author put into this book and how many years she spent getting and collating the information.*I received a free copy of this book, which I voluntarily reviewed

Who were the seemingly ordinary teenagers who beat and killed a girl who longed to be their friend? And how could they hide the murder from their parents and teachers and the police for eight days?Wow, this was a tough read. I knew about the case going in having read about it in the press at the time but something like this stays with you. So, I was intrigued to read about what led to this and what happened to the perpetrators. I hoped to find out more about Reena too, the girl who was murdered. Too much true crime is about the crime and the guilty, and not the victims so I was hoping for a good mix.There was a lot of background on Reena and I felt sorry for her in many ways. A tough childhood. Her so called friends were also had problems but to kill someone? When the book shares ‘ the reason’ for the crime, it’s laughable. Nothing is a good enough reason to kill someone, but the ‘reason’ is laughable.The whole thing reads like a horror story and it’s so well examined that I did feel sick at times. That poor girl. She had her voice heard and I’m pleased the book discusses her life and that of her parents. Her poor parents.There’s a lot of things to take from this book – troubled teens, mob mentality and what on earth causes someone to do this kind of crime? I was grateful there were no crime scene photos in the book – most true crime books have but I always find them distasteful and the book read more horrifically because of their absence.With all the problems, anger and trouble highlighted even before the crime took place, you can see something bubbling dangerously to the surface.This will stay with you. RIP Reena.

4.5* - AD/PR - When I read true crime I need the victim and their family to be given the biggest voice. I’m also fascinated by the psychology behind what makes people kill and I love to read about the investigation process, particularly around forensics. Under The Bridge is a book that really ticked all those boxes for me. It was a brilliant and sensitively handled account of the 1997 murder of 14 year old Reena Virk by her classmates and “friends”.The late Rebecca Godfrey pulls together six years of interviews and painstaking research to build up an account of the events leading up to and after the killing of Reena. You feel like you really get to know Reena which makes what happened to her feel all the more heartbreaking. You get the history of her classmates where, with the benefit of hindsight, you can see how their upbringing, their social interactions and countless minor events all fall like dominoes towards this tragic end. We see the investigation afterwards, the trials and the aftermath. It really is a meticulously researched, thoughtfully crafted and incredibly well executed piece of true crime reporting.

I am telling anyone who will listen to read this book. Its brilliant and haunting.