Helpful Score: 4
Definitely one of McDermid's best. If you like historical references, Wordsworth, and Mutiny on the Bounty, you'll love this book.
Val McDermid spins a fine tale full of literary intrigue, historical speculation, forensics, England's Lake District and a murderer targeting a families elderly.
Jane Gresham is a literary scholar with a theory about Fletcher Christian, of Bounty mutiny fame, and brings him sneaking back into England to tell his story to William Wordsworth who crafts an epic poem that was never published. Wordsworth like Beatrix Potter lived in the Lakes district, so the story ends up there among the extended family descendants of one of Wordsworth's maids. A boring cozy? Not a bit of it!
Jane befriends a girl from her London flat neighborhood who gets falsely accused of a murder, and shelters her on the family farm. Tenille Cole is thirteen, but thinks like thirty. An odd pair? Yes, but an interesting pair!
Somebody is killing off the old descendants of Dorcas Mayson (Mason) as Jane follows the family tree in search of the manuscript. There seem to be too many characters, and too many suspects, but McDermid gives them all personality and a reason to be there. McDermid builds a complex story with many principal characters and several seemingly disparate story lines and manages to bring it all together nicely at the end. Recommended.
Jane Gresham is a literary scholar with a theory about Fletcher Christian, of Bounty mutiny fame, and brings him sneaking back into England to tell his story to William Wordsworth who crafts an epic poem that was never published. Wordsworth like Beatrix Potter lived in the Lakes district, so the story ends up there among the extended family descendants of one of Wordsworth's maids. A boring cozy? Not a bit of it!
Jane befriends a girl from her London flat neighborhood who gets falsely accused of a murder, and shelters her on the family farm. Tenille Cole is thirteen, but thinks like thirty. An odd pair? Yes, but an interesting pair!
Somebody is killing off the old descendants of Dorcas Mayson (Mason) as Jane follows the family tree in search of the manuscript. There seem to be too many characters, and too many suspects, but McDermid gives them all personality and a reason to be there. McDermid builds a complex story with many principal characters and several seemingly disparate story lines and manages to bring it all together nicely at the end. Recommended.
Helpful Score: 1
A bog body found in the Lake District of Britain sets off a hunt for a long lost poem by Wordsworth about Fletcher Christian of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Jane Gresham, a poetry scholar, has long believed that Christian did not die when thought but, returned to England and that his friend Wordsworth set in a poem his account of the mutiny. As several people search for this poem, each with his or her own motives, suspicious deaths begin to occur and Jane finds herself a suspect.
As usual, McDermid writes a a taut thriller keeping you in suspense and involved in finding the answers to the mystery. An excellent read.
As usual, McDermid writes a a taut thriller keeping you in suspense and involved in finding the answers to the mystery. An excellent read.
A slow read, but very worth spending the time. I admit I was a bit skeptical when I read about the book's premise - Did Fletcher Christian of "Mutiny on the Bounty" fame survive and return to England secretly to tell his story to poet William Wordsworth? But the characters are richly developed and believable, and suspense does finally mount in the last section of the book, when there are still several possible villains who might have been responsible for all the suspicious deaths. Recommended for those who enjoy literary mysteries.
