Oct 4th 2016, 21:37

I spent the first few years of my children’s lives regularly hanging out at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, South East London. It was free entry, full of fellow breastfeeding mums, had tons on to entertain all ages of small person and served amazing cake. One of the kids’ favourite areas was the natural history hall: a vast cavernous space full of stuffed animals and reassembled skeletons. The fur of the dead fox that reclined nonchalantly in the interactive space was bedraggled and threadbare from the enthusiastic attention of so many tiny hands.

So with this limited experience of taxidermy, it was quite a leap for me to confront the dark side of the art; what it can represent and reflect in the thematically heightened world of the novel. Of course, the true source of darkness and morbidity is not purely down to the craft of taxidermy or the act of war, but lies within the characters themselves. This book is definitely not one to report on in too much detail: there are twists, turns, revelations and a slow unfurling of the past. We don’t want spoilers here!

The form of the story is realistic yet fantastic. The inevitability of the action and the fateful way in which our third person limited narrator, Walt, allows himself to be drawn into the lives of the sisters, Alys and Mouse, has something of Amis’ London Fields about it. However the lost souls that inhabit this story smack very much of the real world. Familiar and topical news stories of British troops in the Middle East and historical cases of child abuse form the dark and stilted world depicted here.

It won’t surprise you to learn that the parallels between post traumatic stress disorder and the art of taxidermy have never before crossed my mind, but stitched together in this tale by Sandra Ireland, they are clear and totally unforced. The surface, at first glance entirely ordinary, is on closer inspection simply a shell bearing no indication as to its true inner workings.

Guilt in many forms - parental, victim’s and survivor’s - runs strongly and increasingly through the action as this story unfolds. It’s an emotion to which we can all relate. Whether or not you are a parent, you will recognise in this book the familiar desire to protect; whether that is directed to your child, friend or relative. Sandra Ireland shows an impressive skill at locating her reader’s empathy and drawing it out to make you both emotionally invested and totally hooked on the action.

You will also get hooked by the markedly visual writing in this book. The chapters are short, the scenes vivid, invoking sights, sounds, even smells; it’s action that you can imagine translating to screen. The writing is reminiscent of the kind of thing I watch on television when I’m home alone and make myself too terrified to go to bed. In the end I invariably end up embarking on a complicated sequence of switching lights on and off in order to avoid being in the dark until I’m safely covered by the magical powers of my duvet.

So it follows that in the same way as the likes of Luther or Broadchurch purposely leave unanswered questions, we are left a bit hungry here. The end is partially cinematic with a hint of resolution and a hint of the unfinished. This shouldn’t come as a surprise - the incomplete is something that runs through the book from the start, and surely it is a nod to the contradictions of humanity and a reflection of how no experience is ever wrapped up neatly.

It’s pretty noteworthy, really, that this is a debut novel. The characters have depth, the writing is engaging, the story well constructed. I shall never recall the ornithology displays at the Horniman Museum in the same way again!

'A well constructed thriller which sends tingles down the spine'



* Breakaway Reviews * 'I felt on edge throughout and found it pleasingly original within its genre. Loved the Edinburgh link and the familiarity that brought' -- Charlie Bush, Manager, Blackwells RBOS Gogarburn 'Ireland writes about powerful and troubling subjects and shows how the past can have devastating consequences' * Daily Mail *