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| The Grave Tattoo | 
 enlarge | Author: Val Mcdermid
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $31.95
New (9) Used (2) from $25.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 3346746
Format: Large Print
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 655
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0786295716
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780786295715
ASIN: 0786295716
Publication Date: June 7, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In a novel reminiscent of The Rule of Four, The Dante Club and The Historian, suspense master McDermid spins a psychological thriller in which a present-day murder has its roots in the eighteenth century and the mutiny on the H.M.S. Bounty. After torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, long discarded old wives' tales takes on a chilling new plausibility. For centuries, Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And there, he told his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem--a poem that remained hidden lest it expose Wordsworth to the gallows for harboring a fugitive. Wordsworth specialist Jane Gresham, herself a native of the Lake District, feels compelled to discover once and for all whether the manuscript ever existed--and whether it still exists today. But as she pursues each new lead, death follows hard on her heels. Suddenly Jane is at the heart of a 200-year-old mystery that still has the power to put lives on the line. Against the dramatic backdrop of England's Lake District a drama of life and death plays out, its ultimate prize a bounty worth millions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Engrossing, But Weak September 14, 2008
This was my first McDermid book and I enjoyed it enough to read more of her works. And I take at face value remarks by other reviewers that this wasn't her best work, so I hope I will be pleased with the others. This book had a fascinating premise -- the search for a Wordsworth poem based on the thesis that his old school pal Fletcher Christian of Mutiny on the Bounty fame had returned to England and whose bones were found in a present-day peat bog. But, I felt that the plot was not strong enough to support all the killing and intrigue that ensued. I found the ending weak, if not predictible. I found some of the characters unbelieveable. On the other hand, I found the book engrossing and I learned a lot about Wordsworth and the fabled Lake District. A good, but not a great read.
Not Bad, But Not The Best From This Author August 20, 2008
Scholar, Jane Gresham, returns to her native Lake District, in Northern England, to search for a missing poem, that she believes exists, written by William Wordsworth. The words of this poem suggest that his friend, Fletcher Christian of HMS Bounty fame, had returned to his native England, years after the mutiny, that had occurred onboard that ship.
However, she is not the only person on the trail of the missing poem, and someone else, is willing to kill, in order to get their hands on it.
I felt this book was quite slow moving, for the first couple of hundred pages, and I thought the main character Jane Gresham, living in a small, high rise flat, in a very rough, built up area of London, as being a bit unrealistic, as she is clearly not only middle class, but from the rural area of the Lake District, as well. Another important character, the poetry loving teenager, Tenille, did not ring true for me, either.
However, allowing for all of the above, the story does improve as the book progresses, and wasn't too bad a read, overall. If you are new to this author I would recommend the 'Torment Of Others', or 'A Place Of Execution', ahead of this book.
 Kathy in St Louis June 27, 2008
This is my first experience reading a McDermid book. As such, I did not know what to expect but was very pleasantly surprised by the plot and sub-plots of the book.
The Grave Tatoo is a take off from the traditional mystery as described by other reviewers but I enjoyed that interesting change from the typical "who done it."
McDermid's story holds up throughout the book. It is a solid read and well worth your time reading it.
I look forward to reading more of her work.
Good writing, Rich vocabulary. May 31, 2008
Have never read a book by this author before. I will again. Like the way she constructs sentences, uses rich vocabulary (it is the English version of English). There does appear to have been a great amount of research on literature of Wordsworth and his biography; Fletcher Christian and his life history, geneology, and medical ways in which to murder someone in an undetected way and in how to conduct autopsies. However, it is true, as other reviewers have said, that the ending isn't wholly satisfactory and too easy an out; the revelation of the "bad guy" also seems to be constructed soley to meet the requirement of having an anti-hero. There are too many sub-plots and the story might have been better if she had given these extra characters either far more story or far less, but they hit the middle ground. We learn enough about them to get the ball rolling and then their stories plateau and the ball comes to a standstill with no bearing of real importance to the main story or real ending to the sub-story either. In fact, in the end, only Jane herself-is truly integral to the telling of the story. Everyone else becomes somewhat peripheral, even if their part would be classified as "main character," they really aren't. Also, the tattoos advertised on the cover, really don't hold a highly prominent place in the story. In the end, I would describe this as a comfortable book. It is nice to curl up to, but it won't cause you any lost sleep because you can't keep from turning the next page till morning.
 I think I'm going to re-read "Mutiny on the Bounty"! May 19, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
A 200 year old preserved peat body discovered in England's Lake District is covered with South Sea Tattoos of the sort that 18th century British seamen acquired during their travels throughout the far reaches of the British Empire. Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham, convinced that this body is actually Fletcher Christian, long thought to have died on Pitcairn Island, also believes that Wordsworth composed a final epic poem about Christian and the Bounty saga. Of course, if the poem had been published in Wordsworth's lifetime, Christian would have been apprehended and summarily hanged. So, if the poem and any documentary evidence exists as to its provenance, the Wordsworth family have been keeping it secret for over two centuries.
In "The Grave Tattoo", McDermid has created an enjoyable literary mystery that is skillfully blended with an imagined tale of Fletcher Christian's escape from a native uprising on Pitcairn Island and his secret return to the British homeland he so sorely missed. The additional story of Jane's friendship and growing love for a young 13 year old black girl, Tenille Cole (her neighbour in Marshpool, one of London's rundown public housing projects), rounds out the story nicely, adds a tinge of modern day reality, lifts the tale out of the somewhat stuffy world of pure academia and gives "The Grave Tattoo" overall a somewhat more US-centric thriller flavour.
Overall, an enjoyable if somewhat lengthy story that I think might have benefitted by a little editorial pruning and stepping up of some pacing. I'm tempted to make a return visit to Nordhoff and Hall's "Mutiny on the Bounty".
Paul Weiss
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