Secreted in the basement of a crumbling Edinburgh mansion, sealed in a bricked-up chamber, a girl’s body is discovered nailed to the floor in what appears to be a sadistic, ritualistic killing.
Mutilated, defiled, her corpse bears the hallmarks of a sacrificial offering, her death protracted, tortured. Yet while an intricate web of clues might provide investigators with a potential path to her killer’s identity, catching the monster is likely to prove more difficult than it seems. Especially since the crime appears to have taken place more than 60 years ago.
Recently promoted to Detective Inspector, Tony McLean finds himself saddled with the case of the girl in the sealed room. Taken in the face of his current caseload, overshadowed by the demands of his personal life, the enmity of a superior officer, the case comes in relatively low on his list of priorities, the killer likely dead or long-vanished.
Yet the girl in the basement seems unwilling to be relegated to the backburner. Haunting his thoughts, invading his dreams. Spilling over in bizarre, unsettling hallucinations.
When what starts with the murder of one of Edinburgh’s most prominent citizens becomes a string of bloody mutilation killings, McLean is forced to collaborate with the belligerent Detective Chief Inspector Charles Duguid on the investigation amid increasing pressure from his superiors. But as each new discovery seems to sprout tenuous links between the recent spate of killings and that of the girl in the room, McLean finds himself pursuing theories which seem impossible, outlandish, drawn further and further into a terrible truth of the crime perpetrated on an innocent girl 60 years ago.
Short-listed for the Crime Writers Association’s Debut Dagger prize, it’s easy to see why this story was a self-published sensation. Comparisons between Oswald and Rankin aside, McLean comes across somewhat more human than what readers might have come to expect from this genre; free for the most part of that hardboiled cynicism which too often seems a guaranteed trait of your typical ‘Inspector in a Crime Novel’. There’s no axe to grind, no sense of one-upmanship even in his tense interaction with DCI Duguid – a bully of the highest order, and a borderline megalomaniac to boot.
McLean is a detective, but he’s also a guy trying to feel his way through his life as best he can. The way in which Oswald balances these professional and personal aspects – providing enough detail, mystery and tragedy in the latter to make for an intriguing subplot – creates a nicely well-rounded character, and a story which keeps the reader absorbed from start to finish.
Populated by a cast ranging from the quirky to the bizarre, from the sleazily-despicable to the instantly-endearing, Natural Causes manages to avoid most of the clichés inherent in the modern crime thriller without giving up anything that makes the genre so popular. The supernatural element adds a delicious twist to proceedings without dominating all else, handled with a believability that comes across as neither over the top nor overly timid, setting the tone for future instalments in what promises to be one of the more compelling crime series to surface in a while.
Natural Causes is the first book in the Detective Inspector Mclean series. The second is The Book of Souls and the upcoming third will be called The Hangman's Song. Fans of Ian Rankin, Peter James and Stuart McBride will love James Oswald's work.
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Gareth Robertson has worked as a bookseller for the Midlands branch of Exclusive Books for a little over a year now. While he enjoys the occasional historical novel, his first loves are horror, sci-fi, thrillers, and a touch of fantasy.