'...'The Wicker Man'? Edward Woodward plays this cop who goes off to this mysterious Scottish island to investigate a missing girl and he gets caught up in the pagan rites of the inhabitants. It’s very eerie and there are undercurrents of perverse sexual practices and strange beliefs. Well, that’s sort of what it felt like in Scardale in 1963, except we got to go home to normality at the end of the working day. And nobody tried to turn me or George into a human sacrifice...’ [p. 389]
In December 1963, a young girl goes missing from Scardale, a remote hamlet in the Peak District. Alison Carter, the stepdaughter of the local squire, was last seen walking with her dog. The dog is found tied to a tree, her muzzle taped with Elastoplast to stop her barking. There is no sign of Alison.
Detective Inspector George Bennett, new to his position and set somewhat apart from his colleagues by his university education, is determined to solve the case. Several children have lately gone missing in Manchester (newspaper accounts of these cases, the first victims of Brady and Hindley, appear in the text), but Manchester is a world away from Scardale, with its almost feudal community and the close bonds between the villagers.
Alison is not found, but there is strong (and increasingly horrific) circumstantial evidence that she has been murdered. A jury finds the accused guilty, and he is hanged.
Bennett's investigation is the subject of a book by Catherine Heathcote, who grew up near Scardale and remembers Alison Carter's disappearance. Twenty-five years later, she discovers a personal connection to the case: her friend is engaged to George Bennett's son. Heathcote's book forms the first part of A Place of Execution: it's the project that could revive her career. But after Heathcote has submitted her manuscript, Bennett gets in touch and insists that the book must not be published, because new facts have come to light.
This is a powerful and haunting novel, with vivid characterisation and a strong sense of place and time. I was particularly impressed by the inhabitants of Scardale, who almost all come from one of three families. Nearly everybody dismisses the villagers, Alison's cousins and aunts and uncles, as 'not equipped for the modern world', as inbred, as partial: there's a strong undertone of classism, and recurring jokes about Scardale's isolation. It's a strong and close-knit community, and it finds its own way to justice.
1963 is a bit before my time, but the Britain depicted in this novel is familiar to me: everyone smokes (and may ask permission if in mixed company); a clairvoyant is enlisted by a tabloid newspaper to reveal Alison's fate; children are 'protected' from the nastier aspects of life, and not deemed to have feelings. Everything was slower: but not necessarily better.
This was my first McDermid novel: I found it a compelling read, and I'm still thinking about the tragic elements, and about poor Mme Charest from Lyon, who was right.
For Shop Your Shelves Bingo, Summer 2023: purchased 14 JUL 2020, wildcard prompt.
No comments:
Post a Comment