Kind of Cruel is a novel written by Sophie Hannah in 2012, the Seventh installment in her The Spilling Series. When Amber Hewerdine consults a hypnotherapist as a desperate last resort, she doesn't expect that anything much will change. She doesn't expect it to help with her chronic insomnia . . .She doesn't expect to hear herself, under hypnosis, saying words that mean nothing to her: 'Kind, cruel, kind of cruel' - words she has seen somewhere before, if only she could remember where . . .She doesn't expect to be arrested two hours later, as a result of having spoken those words out loud, in connection with the brutal murder of Katharine Allen, a woman she's never heard of...
Contains the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Sharon's mother Marian was psychologically abusive to her daughter, to the point that Sharon would rather Dinah and Nonie "live with crackheads" than go to their grandmother.
- Hilary turns out to be one to Jo (and perhaps Richie, to a lesser extent) by telling Jo that she expected her to take care of Kirsty when she died, especially since Hilary's obsessive behaviour towards Kirsty - essentially abandoing Jo in the process - gave Jo her rampaging Narcissitic disorder.
- Ambiguous Disorder: It's never really explained what Kirsty's handicap is - Amber tried to ask Jo in the most tactful way she could, but Jo acted fairly predictably by lashing out at her and Amber never brings it up again. Ginny speculates Kirsty has the mental age of no more than a two-year-old.
- Ambiguous Innocence: Discussed in regards to Kirsty, as Ginny notes that Amber secretly suspects that she possibly knows something about what happened at Little Orchard, but can't say because of her disability. Dinah and Nonie comment that there's no way of knowing if Kirsty is a good person or a bad person because she can't speak or think for herself.
- Arc Words: "Kind, cruel, kind of cruel."
- Baby Talk: Barney speaks like he's much younger than he actually is, which Amber finds very annoying while Jo thinks it's cute. Though this takes on a darker slant when you realise he might be regressing because of the trauma of being present when Jo murdered Kat Allan.
- Berserk Button: Amber telling Jo she would have refused to take in their mutual father-in-law Quentin after his wife died, and still would if necessary. Because this means Jo's plan to kill Shannon so Amber would be too busy with Dinah and Nonie to look after Quentin was All for Nothing.
- Birds of a Feather: Unlike some of the previous leading ladies of the Spilling Series, Amber finds Simon's blunt demeanour and grumpy attitude rather refreshing, and he in turn treats Amber as an equal rather than a possible suspect.
- Doting Parent: Amber begrudgingly admits to Ginny that as much of a bitch as she is, Jo's an excellent mother to William and Barney. Ginny notes in her analysis of Jo that narcissists tend to be good parents when their children are young and cute, but when they get older and start having opinions of their own, not so much.
- The Dutiful Daughter: Jo is the only one of Hilary's children who grew up into a capable adult, with Kirsty taking up all of Hilary's time and energy because she's mentally disabled and Richie is The Slacker who lives off his sister's money.
- Evil Matriarch: Marian and Hilary.
- Gaslighting: Done quite a lot by Jo, who will be nice one moment, verbally tear into Amber another, then revert back to being nice as if nothing happened. Amber herself mentions she often isn't sure if Jo truly said the things she did or if she imagined them. Simon also notes that there's something incredibly unsettling about Jo's unpredictable moodswings.
- Get Out!: Ginny is not pleased when Amber takes offence to being expected to spill her deepest secrets to her and Simon and demands Ginny do the same, prompting Ginny to kick Amber and Simon out of her clinic. Amber admits to Simon she didn't really want Ginny's secrets, she just wanted Ginny to take a moment to think about what she was asking of Amber.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Kat Allan was murdered - she witnessed Jo renting the fireman's costume she used to kill Sharon, and revealed to Jo that she was moving nearby and could therefore put the pieces together.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: Averted - try as she might, Ginny tells Neil in the finale of the book that despite Jo admitting she killed Sharon and Kat in order to avoid the responsibility of caring for Kristy, Ginny couldn't persuade Jo to admit she hated her sister, such is the extent of the "family first" brainwashing from Hilary.
- Hypocrite: Even though she doesn't want to raise Dinah and Nonie herself, Marian repeatedly tries to block Amber and Luke's attempts to adopt the girls, saying that although they are their legal guardians, that doesn't make them their parents.
- Irony: Dinah is at loggerheads with her Headmistress for much of the book, but when said headmistress witnesses Jo kidnapping Dinah and Nonie, it's her who comes to the rescue.
- The Load: Quentin, Neil and Luke's father, is an incredibly annoying Old Windbag who cannot cope with living by himself, as his wife Pamela took care of him for their entire marriage. This actually becomes a plot point during The Reveal.
- Richie and Kirsty too, Richie being The Slacker who refuses to get a job note and Kirsty is severely mentally disabled.
- Mama Bear: Amber is fiercely protective of Dinah and Nonie, even saying she wouldn't have biological children of her own in order to focus on raising them.
- The Narcissist: Ginny diagnoses Jo with Narcissistic Personality Disorder midway through the book, commenting that from what Amber's told her, she's a textbook example.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dinah is the Red Oni to Nonie's blue.
- Tragic Monster: How the novel paints Jo, who became a narcissist thanks to the unwitting abuse of her own mother.
- Villainous Breakdown: A truly disturbing example with Jo, who begins behaving exactly like her mentally handicapped sister as Simon's interrogation of her drives home what a horrible person she's become and it's left ambiguous as to whether or not she can and will recover.
- Wham Line: Dinah revealing she and Nonie are the ones who invented 'Kind of Cruel'
- Olivia revealing that Jo knew Kat Allan, thus connecting her to both cases.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Gibbs notes that Sharon's killer is unusual in this example because they were perfectly willing to burn down a house with an innocent woman inside, but went out of their way to get Dinah and Nonie out and warned them to run away.
