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At the start of Book One of Reginald Hill's thriller THE WOODCUTTER, a rich and powerful man named Sir Wilfred Hadda is roused from sleep. The police are at the door with search warrants. Although it is 2008 and we are at the beginnings of the worldwide financial crisis, what they are concerned with is finding evidence of pornography, not corporate malfeasance. In the Prologue preceding this scene, we have been presented with events from previous decades. It is not initially clear what the connections are between these events and the present day of the novel, which is several years in the future. Eventually we understand, but the significance of what we are seeing still takes time to comprehend. Sir Wilfred—or Wolf, as he is called--has an extremely short fuse and punches the lead investigator in the face. Then he assaults him again. He is taken into custody for his actions and we are told that he will never set foot in his mansion again. Everything goes terribly downhill for Wolf from there. There is any number of sleazy and corrupt characters—but they are not always the ones you suspect at first. The author cleverly presents certain events so that both the reader and the other characters get a purposely distorted picture of what is happening. Everyone seems to have ulterior motives, and connecting the dots to figure out what really occurred takes the whole book. The author endeavors to frame his novel as a sort of fairy tale. He does this in several ways throughout the book. He gives Wolf certain characteristics that at times seem almost supernatural. Wolf narrates the first chapter, beginning with the classic, "Once upon a time…" He is the woodcutter of the title, having learned this craft from his father. The arc of the story takes the humble woodcutter to the princess in the castle, but no one here lives happily ever after. Although the quotes from folk tales and poems that Hall inserts before some of sections are there to add to the mythic quality of the book, often asking us to focus on the idea of the wolf, the whole use of the fairy tale in this way felt contrived. Was Wolf set up? Is he innocent? Is he guilty and in denial, as the determined young prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo believes? What happens to Wolf while he is in prison, his relationship with Alva, and what he does during that time and afterwards to the people in his field of influence, make for a riveting, if not totally satisfying, read. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, June 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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