The Grave Tattoo

Product Information

This is all run through with various familial relationships and local colour, building into a fairly satisfying mystery, although some of the decision-points do seem a little contrived and the ultimate conclusion of one of the mysteries somewhat tacked on, perhaps because this is away from the more visceral style that is the majority of McDermid's work. After summer rains uncover a corpse bearing tattoos like those of eighteenth-century seafarers, many residents of the English Lake District can’t help but wonder whether it’s the body of one of the town’s most legendary fugitives.

It does make a difference when you know what the scenery and villages actually look like - sharpens the imagery, I think. And she doesn’t know that one of the people competing with her for the prize doesn’t mind killing to get it. Snippets of a manuscript are provided at the end of the chapters, so we can get to hear the story as it was told to the one who recorded it. Thomas Harris crossed with Agatha Christie, if you will… The Grave Tattoo is a great read; England’s heritage history has never been so chilling.She is also convinced there is a lost masterpiece, a poem that Wordsworth wrote about the legend of what happened to his notorious friend. A shriveled body found in a bog seems to bear resemblance to this dashing hero, right down to the South Sea tattoos that blacken his buttocks. In 1984, after the traumatizing death of her closest friend, amateur sleuth and former reporter Lindsay Gordon left England for California. Guest artists are also a regular occurrence, allowing the people of Northern Ireland to be tattooed by International artists.

The literary chase, which leaves a trail of unexplained dead bodies, is a fascinating one with a satisfying resolution.The bucolic rolling landscape of England’s Lake District yields an unusually rich and complex plot in THE GRAVE TATTOO (St. This sets up an improbable subplot involving a teenage girl that Jane has befriended and, after witnessing the murder of her aunt’s boyfriend, follows Jane to Lakeland to avoid the police.