I have read a few novels by Val McDermid and this is not
quite as good as the others I have read
but more about that later. It is difficult to place this novel into a specific
genre. I would put it across the thriller/murder mystery/historical novel areas
as it does cross over all these three.
Brief Plot:
A body has been found near Fellhead in the Lake District
buried in the peat bogs (referred to as ‘the body in the bog’ and ‘Pirate
Peat’). As it turns out the police aren’t interested in it. It has been there
for some time, so long in fact that if foul play was suspected then s/he who committed
the crime would have long since died as well….
Jane Gresham is on a quest to find a rumoured lost poem
written by Wordsworth on the subject of Fletcher Christian. Jane believes Fletcher Christian returned to
the lakes many years after the incident with the Bounty and that he gave Wordsworth
his version of events and Wordsworth had written it all down in the form of a
poem but never published it or showed it to anyone else. Jane returns to the Lakes where she grew up
in order to investigate and to see if her theory is right…..
Jane finds far more than she bargained for as an unfortunate
series of events begins to unfold and with a rising body count, if it exists,
can she find what she is looking for before it is too late……
What I thought of it:
There has obviously been a lot of research done by the
author around the life and writings of Wordsworth and the mutiny on the Bounty
as this does feature in short sections at the start of each chapter written as
if it is in the viewpoint of Fletcher Christian.
As with all of the books by McDermid which I have read this
is on the whole well written and at it was hard at times to put down. Although
it took a while to really get going there are enough twists in the plot to
maintain the readers’ interest and to keep you guessing as to what the final
outcome will be. Also I had the
immediate feeling of wanting to find out who the body in the bog was and had to
resist temptation to turn to the last chapter to find out.
Whilst the story does build well to the final conclusion I couldn’t
help feeling a little disappointed in the way the novel ends. I have the
feeling that writers block had started to set in and it was a case of ‘it’s an
ending’. I feel that this could have been more dramatic without going over the
top.
The setting of the majority of the novel is the Lake District
and the descriptions of the area have been well done to demonstrate how spread
out some of the houses and villages are in some of the remote parts of the Lakes
as well as some of the natural beauty of the area. Also there is the indication
of how old some of the houses are in some of the areas of the Lakes. The
feelings of the people who grew up in the lakes who now feel that their
communities and villages have been ruined by weekenders who buy property and
only stay in them for the odd weekend now and then is also portrayed within the
novel. As someone who grew up not far from the Lake District I can sympathise
with this feeling.
The main characters are well developed and from early on in
the book you do want Jane to succeed in her mission. Jane, whilst an academic,
has found that for her academia does not pay all that well and has found
herself, much to her mum’s distress, living in a fairly rough London council
estate. Tenille, a teenager who lives in
the same London council estate as Jane, I feel is used more as a plot point to
begin with but she does eventually become an important part of the main story. Tenille
is seen by many as a ‘no hoper’ due to her background and where she lives.
Jane, however, sees that Tenille is more intelligent than people give her
credit for and has seen that Tenille shows promise especially in literature.
There are a number of secondary characters, most of whom are
far less developed, but very few of them are what I would call throw away
characters as the majority of them add to the plot in some way. Most of these are within the same family who
live in the Fellhead area of the Lake District.
The bitterness Jane feels towards her ex-boyfriend, Jake,
comes through right from the start.
During the middle part of the novel Jake is portrayed as a slimy toad
who would sell his own grandmother at the right price. As for Jane’s brother, Matthew, I fail to see
the point in this character. He adds little to the story except for giving the
sibling rivalry part to the family life. Matthew only turns up sporadically
throughout the novel and the only important bit from his side is that the class
he has been teaching produces a clue which would help Jane, not that Matthew
intends to tell her about it.
Dr River Wilde (yes that is her name) a forensic
anthropologist is also out to make a name for herself and the body in the bog
looks like the ideal opportunity. So much so that she tries to get a TV company
interested in recording and broadcasting the autopsy of the body – all so they
can pay for the tests she wants to do. Whilst, like Matthew, she is a bit of a
sporadically used character she does add more to the story and is a more
likeable character.
The chapters are fairly short and so it does give points where you can put it down for the night. There is a bit of jumping around within chapters between what appears to be the main plot and the sub plots, however, most of these do all tie together well as the novel progresses.
Summary:
Well written on the whole with some good characters.
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