Dark Anatomy—by Robin Blake ;Published by Panmacmilan
; Pages 372 ; Price Rs 350/-
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Just as Sherlock Holmes made 221 b Baker
Street , London Preston is making
its mark on the literary map. “Cheapside ”, but it
certainly rings bells for those who regularly walk the streets of Lancashire ’s largest
city. Robin Blake, a Preston-born author better known for his biographies of
artists, has turned his hand to historical crime fiction and the first of a new
series looks set to put both his talents and his old home town centre stage.
The case currently gripping Preston is the
brutal murder of Dolores Brockletower in the grounds of Garlick Hall, a country
mansion in the leafy suburb of Fulwood, and as policing barely exists, it’s up
to the Coroner Titus Cragg to turn detective. What is unsettling for him is that no-one at the big house seems to care
that the young mistress, daughter of a wealthy West Indian sugar planter, has
been found with her throat cut ‘from ear to ear’. Local gossip is awash with
rumour and suspicion and there are those that believe the reclusive Dolores was
involved in witchcraft and ‘walked with the Devil’. What little evidence there
is seems to point in the direction of her husband, Ramilles Brockletower, the
local MP and JP who owns a large tract of land, ‘filched from the forest’ claim
locals, and is consequently hated by his tenants. Faced with obstruction,
corruption and interference, Cragg and his Doctor friend Luke Fidelis must use
their own detective skills and a primitive judicial system to track down the
killer. Blake conjures up a fascinating portrait of 18th century life full of
superb period detail from a map of old Preston on the inside cover to the
internal workings of a country house and the Coroner’s dinner of ‘baked marrow
and mutton’.
This first novel of Blake has the atmosphere of the period and is quite
a mystery. Georgian England is the
apotheosis of wickedness and despite witnessing great social and economic reform
and upheaval the nation was still rife with superstition, which Blake brings
out well. Old fears and superstitions still abound but this is the Age of the
Enlightenment when a new kind of rational thought process is taking root and
forensic science is on the cusp of playing a key role in crime investigation.
With no formal law enforcement in place, it is left to Cragg and Fidelis, to discover the truth. The story is
told through Cragg’s dry-witted narrative and recounts the duo’s investigations
into the murder and subsequent affairs. Fidelis is cheerfully irreverent though
fundamentally Catholic in his beliefs, which plays off well against Cragg’s
Anglican pragmatism. The ambitious and headstrong young doctor Luke Fidelis bases
his discoveries on science rather than irrational judgment
often take the cautious Coroner to the most unexpected corners of enquiry.
We
have a “ whodunit ” without a police procedural, a rarity in the genre. The
historical facts are interesting and quite authentic; the story is an
enchanting one and Blake’s treatment of rural folklore and archaic beliefs is
masterly, and is particularly macabre in the final chapter.
Blake’s prose
is fluid, smooth, engrossing and very easy to read. He has managed to keep the
formality of the era without making it sound like another language and he ever
so slightly bent some aspects of custom to make it a little easier to connect
to. Blake also succeeds in describing the difference between the classes simply
by the way they speak. The way the characters talk you know exactly the place
they occupied in society. Blake sets the scene for future novels as “A Dark
Anatomy” is the first of a trilogy. Not only that, but in the era before
computers, high tech analysis, DNA and finger printing murder investigations
were not as straight forward. It is really amazing that any crime was solved at
all! After the second death, however, everything seems to unfold swiftly. The
ending is very interesting and the solution something one does not envisage.
Blake has
created an excellent double act in Cragg and Fidelis, two men of
conflicting character and methodology, motivated by a strong sense of justice
and some friendly rivalry, but both strong-willed, clever and determined to
seek out the truth wherever it leads. Robin Blake’s story is historically
informed, crisply written and has all the qualities of a classic detective
novel and introduces the reader to a new detective from the past.
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