Val McDermid’s
latest novel, The Grave Tattoo, may be one
of her most interesting books yet. This standalone
novel mixes historical fact with fiction—always
a tricky balance to achieve—but McDermid pulls
it off by treating the history with the gravity it
requires while maintaining the excitement and action
of a superior crime novel.
The story hinges on the legend of
a sailor, Fletcher Christian, who became infamous for
leading the mutiny on the Bounty. Fletcher
Christian went to school with the great poet, William
Wordsworth, and the two families had other close ties. There
is a Lake District legend that Fletcher Christian survived
the massacre on Pitcairn Island, faked his death, and
secretly returned to England, where he was under sentence
of death. Once there, he told his side of the
mutiny to Wordsworth, who wrote an epic poem about
it. The poem was never published, but may have
been kept secret and passed down in family papers for
generations.
In The Grave Tattoo, McDermid’s Wordsworth
scholar Jane Gresham comes upon some previously unrecorded
letters which seem to confirm this story, possibly
proving the legend true. When a body is discovered
in a peat bog in the Lake District with black tattoos
of the sort that sailors like Fletcher Christian got
in Tahiti, the legend starts up again with fresh vigour. While
forensic anthropologist Dr. River Wilde investigates
the corpse for a television documentary, Jane Gresham
returns on study leave to her home in Fellhead, trying
to track down the documentation that will prove her
theory true and possibly bring the lost poem to light.
In the midst of all this academic inquiry, however,
are baser motives: the discovery of a new manuscript
by Wordsworth would be worth millions of dollars. Jane’s
ex-boyfriend, Jake, is also on the trail for his new
boss and lover, Caroline, an unscrupulous rare manuscript
dealer. Schoolteacher Matthew Gresham, Jane’s
chronically jealous and dissatisfied brother, is doing
a school project on tracing family trees. Is
he concealing information from Jane for his own purposes? Tenille,
Jane’s teenage neighbor in London and daughter
of a notorious gangster is also following her. The
police say she’s on the run for the murder of
her aunt’s boyfriend, who was sexually abusing
her. What does Jane know about that? When
some of the names Jane Gresham is researching are murdered
Jane herself, as the thread that connects them, falls
under suspicion by the police. Can Jane sort
out all these intertwined connections, clear her name,
and keep herself alive during the process?
McDermid keeps the reader guessing
by salting the story with plenty of red herrings and
lots of chapter-to-chapter action. Complex, believable characters rub shoulders
with personalities from England’s history. It’s
the sort of book that lovers of academic mysteries won’t
be able to put down until the wee hours of the morning. It
combines real-life historical background with the kind
of exciting police procedural we’ve come to expect
from Val McDermid. It’s a fine addition to
McDermid’s body of work.
Other reviews by Barry Hammond:
Blackfly Season
The Maltese Falcon
The Closers |
