British Mysteries

Sam Flood has come to Illthwaite to find a link to a grandmother who was sent as a child to Australia to be adopted. Her grandmother, only 12 when she arrived in Australia, quickly died in childbirth under the brutal ministrations of the nuns in the convent she's been sent to. Her own father has long since given up a search for any British ancestors, but Sam, come to England to attend Oxford, has a thirst for a hunt. She gets far more than she bargains for. Mig, a Catholic who from boyhood has had visions and felt pain in his palms and feet at odd times, has discovered his calling to be a priest isn't a true one, and he's at a loose end when, after a climbing accident, he goes to England to research the whereabouts of a certain Father Simeon of Illthwaite. He, too, gets more than he bargained for.

I think only a writer as assured and intelligent as Reginald Hill would have been able to draw the many disparate threads of this story together in a satisfying way, but he manages to tie together a narrative involving a priest hole, priest torture, child rape and the lives of the several vivid families of Illthwaite in such a way that the final sort of "gotcha" moment comes in the very last sentence. It's an incredibly atmospheric book - Cumbria, as seen through the eyes of a Spaniard and an Australian - is a mysterious and far from straightforward place, and it's also infused with the Norse mythology that overlies the "newer" mythology of Christianity. To an American, some of the events are impossibly antique, but Hill infuses both the present and the past parts of his story with an equal fire. This is an unusual, difficult, and intelligent read that would be enjoyed by any fan of the British psychological mystery. It even ends somewhat happily (and in comparison to a Ruth Rendell ending, it's a virtual fiesta of fun and happiness).