I am delighted to take part in the #SkelfSummer celebrations showcasing all things Skelf in the run up to the publication of Book 6 in the series, Living is a Problem. Over the next few weeks I will be reminding you about the series by Doug Johnstone with a repost of Skelf novels. We are starting with Book 1, A Dark Matter.
After an unexpected death, three generations of women take
over the family funeral-home and PI businesses in the first book of a
brilliant, page-turning and darkly funny new series .
The Skelfs are a well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of
a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators. When
patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and
granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an
unexpected series of events.
Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another women,
suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend
Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes
on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have
imagined.
As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and
the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past
emerge, which change everything… It’s a compelling and tense thriller and a
darkly funny, warm portrait of a family in turmoil.
My Thoughts
I
was hooked from the opening chapter, with its arresting imagery and
dark, dark subject. Beneath the writing runs a seam of subtly black
humour which roots the writing in the everyday. There are plenty of
family dynamics going on in this story. Told from the perspective of
three generations, we have Hannah, Jenny and Dorothy. As the three Skelf
women take over the family businesses of Private Investigator and
Funeral Directors, there are plenty of story threads to follow and a
murder mystery to decipher.
A mix of crime, mystery and family relationships, with a huge dollop of
science, makes this one of those novels which allows your mind to
wander off onto quite philosophical directions. Death is ever present,
not just in the physical sense, but also with the death of characters'
illusions and memories as the past is rewritten. I believe this is the
first in a series about the Skelf family. If so, there is plenty to come
in this format. The plotting is exceptional and the prose eminently
readable.
In short: Edinburgh provides the setting for some inter-generational sleuthing.
About the Author
Doug Johnstone is the author of ten novels, most recently
Breakers (2018), which has been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for
Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. Several of his books have been bestsellers
and award winners, and his work has been praised by the likes of Val McDermid,
Irvine Welsh and Ian Rankin. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in
residence at various institutions – including a funeral home – and has been an
arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five
albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime
Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also playermanager of the Scotland
Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.
Thanks to Doug Johnstone, Karen Sullivan and Anne Cater of Orenda Books for a copy of the book.
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