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Julia Trent, a primary school-teacher, has come to the small village of Chilton to clear out her parent's house following their untimely death from a faulty gas appliance. She walks into a massacre; a gunman is making his way around the village killing as many people as possible. Julia survives, almost miraculously, and believes herself to be the only witness to the fact that there was a second gunman who killed the first one. The police will not take her story seriously and it is only Craig Walker, whose father died in the massacre and in fact played a key role in helping Julia survive, an investigative journalist with a crumbling marriage and a drink problem, who wants to discover the truth. But even his motives appear suspect to Julia. As soon as they start to investigate, however, it becomes very clear that the killer is determined to stop them by any means he can and preferably by eliminating them. Other players on the scene are the property developer George Matheson, his dying wife Vanessa and her wastrel nephew Toby and the Trinidadian super-villain Kendrick and his British accomplice Vilner. There was a television programme in the UK in 2008 in which a number of 'celebrities' learned the art of mystery writing (and were eliminated in turn until a winner was found) under the tutelage and judgement of Minette Walters; SKIN AND BONES feels as though it might have been the result. In part this is because there are notable reminders of Minette Walters herself - the multi-character narrative style, the inclusion of the 'bad-guys' viewpoint, the interest in psychology, the gothic elements of the earlier Walters. But it is also the result of the fact that the book often feels forced; there is a straining for effect, for narrative tautness and suspense. It also feels as if the book was written with half an eye to a possible television or cinema adaptation. A lot of these features are very apparent in the opening scenes of the massacre; it as though someone has said 'you need a really strong dramatic opening'. And to some extent Bale succeeds. The opening chapters are certainly dramatic and tension-filled. But even here one feels that the effects are being pursued too hard. One of the most interesting features of the book is that the most effective character, a genuinely chilling one, is not given her own voice in the way that others are. She only emerges fully at the conclusion, and the book's ending is by far the best part of it. Every plot strand is tied together and there is even a nice final twist. Unfortunately other elements work less well; none of the characters who are given their own voices are especially convincing (the marriage threatened, the drink-problem journo are surely better avoided?), the bad guys tend to the caricature (there is a very bloody scene towards the end which personally I found so over the top as to be a bit comic, but others might just be revolted) and the psychology is, at best, basic. It is actually the gothic element centred round the best character which is most effective. There is no doubt that SKIN AND BONES would work very well as a television drama; as one reads one can imagine many scenes visually. But as a book the ever-present sense of effort and also of the reader being manipulated (something essential to mystery fiction but which should always be out of sight) are definite negatives.
Reviewed by Nick Hay, January 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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