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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 8, No. 18 |
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reviews the new mystery novel VAL McDERMID's 'THE GRAVE TATTOO' |
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Is the body found in a bog
an HMS Bounty mutineer?
of TheColumnists.com
Val McDermid keeps cementing her growing reputation as one of the two or three best mystery writers in the UK by turning out refreshingly original new novels each year.
The Scottish ex-newspaper reporter already has three detective series to her credit, including the "Wire in the Blood" novels featuring Dr. Tony Hill, now the subject of a popular British TV series, yet still continues to come up with amazingly smart "stand alone" mysteries like her latest, "The Grave Tattoo" (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95).
This one starts when a well-preserved corpse is pulled out of a bog in England's Lake district and the experts say it may be several hundred years old. Even more intriguing are the tattoos found on the body. They are the very early type done by South Sea Islanders when English sailors first began exploring those waters in the era following Capt. Cook's voyages.
McDermid knows how to coax that sort of thing into a roller coaster ride of a thriller, which she most definitely does with "The Grave Tattoo." For those who love mysteries with a rich layer of historical context, this will be a fascinating read, especially when McDermid begins to tantalize you with the peculiar notion that the body is that of Fletcher Christian, leader of the band of mutineers who took over HMS Bounty, put the despotic Capt. Bligh and his loyalists into a small boat thousands of miles from England and set sail with Bounty for their final destination--the remote Pitcairn Island.
What turns this into a sort of "DaVinci Code" thriller is McDermid's final spin on that exotic plot: Fletcher Christian may have returned to England, knowing he faced the gallows for his part in the mutiny, in order to ask his old school friend, renowned English poet William Wordsworth, to use his way with words to tell Christian's side of the story.
Once word gets out that Wordsworth may have done that very thing by writing an epic poem that he never intended to be published during his lifetime, the scoundrels come out of the woodwork, scenting a "lost manuscript" by Wordworth that would be worth tens of millions today.
And there's a parallel mystery, too: The dead body found in the bog apparently was the victim of murder. A whodunnit several hundred years earlier? That's Val McDermid for you.
McDermid's mysteries are very literate, highly intelligent and yet move at a brisk pace. As usual, she packs this novel with characters whose complexities and nuances are endlessly intriguing. Her heroine is Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham, a native of the Lake district who's obsessed with finding the lost manuscript, tracking down descendants of the person she believes may have been entrusted with the unpublished manuscript.
But her ex-boyfriend is also on the trail, secretly tapping into her email to learn where her investigations are leading, hoping to snatch the prize from under her nose and turn it over to his current lady friend, a ruthless London dealer in antiquities who scents millions on the horizon.
When the elderly people Jane questions about the manuscript suddenly start dying off, she soon begins to realize her own life may be in jeopardy.
Complicating her search is the fact that Tenille, a runaway black teenager she has befriended, is the main suspect in a murder. Tenille has followed Jane to the Lake district, dodging the police all the way, and takes refuge with her kindly white mentor. When Tenille decides to quietly help Jane find the lost manuscript, the danger to them both becomes critical.
This is an utterly absorbing thriller with
a surprise ending that may or may not please you. But even if
it doesn't, you're sure to enjoy the suspenseful buildup McDermid
creates along the way.
©2007 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration is courtesy of the publisher. This column first posted 5/14/07.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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