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| The Grave Tattoo | 
 enlarge | Author: Val Mcdermid
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
List Price: $29.07
Buy New: $15.26
You Save: $13.81 (48%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Media: Audio Download
ASIN: B000OXEPSQ
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Real McDermid March 5, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've read many of McDermid's books. I must admit I bought this one simply because it involves the infamous mutiny on the Bounty, and Wordsworth. I have long been intrigued by both, though Wordsworth perhaps isn't as popular as he once was. And if any writer could somehow combine these two elements, it is Val McDermid.
Let's see: there's a post doctoral Wordsworth scholar, a smart thirteen-year-old, a centuries-old body in a bog in the Lake District which may or may not be Fletcher Christian, a lost manuscript that may or may not exist, a few murders sprinkled in throughout, and everyone in the story seems motivated by self interest. When reading this novel, trust no one's motives.
Jane works two jobs while trying to turn her doctoral thesis into a book; she lives in council housing, amongst the poor, the criminals and the criminally negligent of the East End, and is lonesome and nostalgic about her home in the Lake District. She is befriended by a rough young girl named Tenille, who hates school but loves poetry. McDermid has created a wonderful character in this tough, wise, scared and scary girl.
McDermid in fact has done a great thing with all the characters in this tale, and with the plot, twisted, tangled, slow to get started and sometimes racing along, and with scene and mood. No one writes about urban grit and grime like McDermid, but she does an equally expert job of the countryside to which all major characters retire to then become involved in a race to discover: is there a lost epic poem based on Christian's adventures? Did he in fact manage to return to England and live, and if so, was he then dispatched in a peat bog, and if so, why? Who can Jane really trust, Jake, the ex lover, Dan the stalwart friend, her brother Matthew, beset by jealousy, Tenille, who turns up on the run from the cops in London (as a body has turned up there,)and who proceeds to "help" Jane search for the missing poem? Can she really trust the curator at the Wordsworth Trust?
Dead bodies are produced at an alarming rate. Jane is followed, watched, stalked, a near victim of a hit-and-run, then she's hit on the head, and she has to help Tenille stay one step ahead of the police, and she has to figure out who would want the missing manuscript enough to kill for it. I never knew scholars had this much excitement.
Excitement is what you'll find, from the lanquid and stifling beginning in London, to the thrill of getting closer to her objective, Jane goes from being blissfully concentrated on her search to being crafty with the cops.
"All landscapes hold their own secrets. Layer on layer, the past is buried beneath the surface. Seldom irretrievable, it lurks, waiting for human agency or meteorological accident to force the skeleton up through flesh and skin back into the present. Like the poor, the past is always with us."
I was hooked. In the midst of these several mysteries and betrayals, you'll find human failings and inconsistencies, and some excellent writing.
 The Lake District Gives Up Its Secrets May 6, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"The Grave Tattoo," Val McDermid's latest, is a standalone mystery set in England's renowned, pastorally beautiful, genteel Lake District. McDermid, an award-winning, relatively new author, is best-known for her engrossing Dr. Tony Hill/ DCI Carol Jordan mystery series. At any rate, this book's plot involves two of the District's supposed native sons, each still famed in his own way: leading 19th Century Romantic Poet William Wordsworth; and Fletcher Christian, instigator of the contemporary, infamous Caine mutiny. According to the book, they were not only both local, but were also friends from earliest schooldays. Unfortunately, as I dropped the English major at school because it required the Romantic Poets; and gentility has never worked for me, I can't personally vouch for the truth of any of this.
McDermid has come up with an audacious idea to hang her plot on: that Christian found his way home from the Pacific Pitcairn Island where he'd settled, met his old friend Wordsworth, and debriefed him on the truth of the mutiny: Captain Bligh was then ascendent in England. Furthermore, that Wordsworth then wrote a long epic poem about the mutiny, but held it back from publication, as Christian was an unpopular, famous felon. And the law prescribed jail time for aiding and abetting. Supposedly, however, this meeting and the poem it produced live in local legend. But, once again, don't look to me to know anything about this.
The book opens after a rainy summer has brought a body to light in one of the district's bogs. At first glance, numerous characteristics, including the presence of black tattoos considered native to the 18th century South Seas area, suggest it might be Fletcher Christian. Jane Gresham, born-in-the-Lake District Wordsworth scholar, has long thought local gossip about the poet and the poem might be true, so the finding of this body causes her to go home to research the possibilities. In this effort, she is aided and hindered by her brother Matthew, forensic pathologist Dr. River Wilde (sic), Tenille Cole, a fugitive black teenaged friend (don't ask); her ex- Jake Hartnell, his current squeeze Caroline Kerr, both rare book dealers, and gay friend Dan Seaborne. But, for better or worse, when you consider and honor McDermid's core idea, I could have lived without a couple of the hackneyed subplots. To me, they just slow things up. But what do I know?
 Out of Control September 8, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Val McDermid has proven herself an outstanding mystery writer in the past with efforts like "Place of Execution" and "Wire in the Blood," so it was dismaying to read this novel and see plot and characterization spinning out of control as if this were a first novel. Too many characters, too many subplots and too much history leave the reader with no more than an outline for two or three novels. A wise editor would have taken a pruning shears to this work while it was still a first draft. She attempts to cram in so much that there is no space for proper characterization and some plot turns seem to sacrifice reason to keep the story moving.
wonderful literary sleuthing thriller February 18, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Growing up in Fellhead in the English Lake Country area, Jane Gresham has heard numerous times the story of Fletcher Christian escaping the massacre at Pitcairn Island and returning to England where his schoolmate William Wordsworth gave him shelter. Further word of mouth through the generations is that Wordsworth wrote an epic poem re the adventures that the mutineer related to him, but this alleged work was either hidden or lost.
Everything suddenly changes when a corpse dated from the first half of the nineteenth century is uncovered in a nearby peat bog. The townsfolk immediately claim Fletcher has been found. Jane, a Wordsworth academic, sees an opportunity to determine whether the great poet ever did a take on Bounty mutiny and if true she wants to find the poem. Unbeknownst to the scholar is that her unprincipled former boyfriend and her acrimonious jealous brother amongst others seek the poem for personal gain with one willing to kill to succeed.
This is a fascinating mystery with present day "detectives" seeking a potential lost nineteenth century masterpiece. The switch back and forth between the two centuries is smooth and gripping as Val McDermid shows her talent at its best. Though the killer seems ironically obvious to readers, fans who appreciate something a bit different will want to read this wonderful literary sleuthing thriller.
Harriet Klausner
 "All landscapes hold their own secrets." February 25, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
In Val McDermid's "The Grave Tattoo," Jane Gresham is a post-doctoral researcher and Wordsworth specialist living on a shoestring budget in a run-down East End council estate. Besides teaching, Jane earns a little money working part-time in a bar and grill. Her somewhat pedestrian life changes radically when she embarks on a search for a long-lost narrative poem supposedly written by William Wordsworth concerning the plight of the famous mutineer, Fletcher Christian, Wordsworth's old friend and classmate. Jane Gresham is obsessed with finding this potentially priceless document, not so much for its monetary value as for its academic significance. Her interest is piqued even further when heavy rains flooding a Lake District bog lead to a grisly discovery: the body of a man with a distinctive tattoo, possibly even Christian himself, dating from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Jane travels to her parents' farm in Fellhead to embark on a treasure hunt that turns out to be both frustrating and dangerous.
"The Grave Tattoo" has an intriguing premise and McDermid's lively storytelling makes for a suspenseful and engrossing tale. The large cast of characters includes Jake Hartnell, Jane's ex-boyfriend, a selfish opportunist with a secret agenda of his own, Matthew Gresham, Jane's resentful brother who squabbles with her constantly, and Dan Seabourne, a friend and fellow scholar who joins forces with her in her search. Dr. River Wilde is a beautiful forensic anthropologist whose job it is to examine the Fellhead cadaver, whom she dubs "Pirate Peat." Finally, a most unlikely character is a thirteen-year-old black girl named Tenille, a tough and extremely bright young lady with a penchant for getting into trouble. When she becomes a murder suspect, Tenille turns to her only friend in the world--Jane Gresham--for help.
McDermid's descriptive writing has always been one of her strong points and she waxes lyrical when describing the beauty of the Lake District: "The lake spangled dark sapphire in the autumn sun and River felt lucky not only to be alive but to be moving through nature at her most glamorous." The plot is filled with fascinating trivia about Wordsworth and the Bounty mutineers. Interspersed throughout the novel are short passages in which Fletcher Christian recounts his adventures both during and after the mutiny. As Jane and others seek out and interview Wordsworth's descendants in Fellhead, strange and unexpected deaths begin to occur and Jane herself is targeted by a desperate killer anxious to obtain the Wordsworth papers for himself. Although the book is marred by some stilted and occasionally long-winded dialogue, a sluggish second half, and a predictable conclusion, at least McDermid avoids tying up all of her plot elements too neatly. "The Grave Tattoo" is not McDermid's most skillfully crafted novel, but it will have strong appeal for those who love literary and historical mysteries.
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