Contemporary Killings on an Orkney Island

 I'm reviewing The Killing Stones which is a mystery by Ann Cleeves.  I have never previously read this author.  I got this book from Netgalley.  At the time it was in advance of  publication.  I'm sorry it took me so long to read the book, but I've been reading slowly lately. 

                                                                                                      

 

This book opens in a small village called Pierowall on an island named Westray in the Orkney archipelago (group of islands).  I immediately imagined a place where everyone knows way too much about everyone else.  So I thought that a murderer would have a hard time concealing that they had committed the crimes. On the other hand, solving murders and arresting perpetrators would be more of an issue for the authorities because there was no police station in Pierowall.  

There was mention of people routinely drinking and driving.  I thought that with the lack of a police presence, adults could be as irresponsible as teenagers when it came to drinking and driving.  What was the rate of vehicular homicide there?  This small village began to seem a good deal less than idyllic.  I wouldn't want to live there. 

I learned that cars were left unlocked because if you stole a car you couldn't leave the island with it unless you took the ferry, and then you'd get caught.   So drunk drivers weren't likely to commit vehicular homicide with a stolen car.  Jeez Louise!  I still don't want to live there.

 When the pathologist, Dr. Grieve, examined a murder victim in this case, he said that moving the body from the crime scene could contaminate it.  I thought that leaving it there could contaminate it too.  There might well be a storm.  Then all sorts of debris could contaminate the corpse.  Dr. Grieve added that he couldn't start the body on its journey to the mortuary in Aberdeen for the postmortem until tomorrow evening's Northlink ferry.  

I learned that the earliest ferries were established in the 19th century.  So the locals were living in 19th century conditions in the 21st century.  The crime scene investigation team also had to deal with 19th century conditions.   The pace of change there was glacial.

I wasn't interested in the characters, but the identity of the perpetrator surprised me.  On the other hand, the resolution was dragged out and I found that unenjoyable.  I didn't want to read this interminable drama focusing on the perpetrator who turned out to be totally repellent.  That's not surprising when you consider what this person did.

I hope the non-fiction that I'm reading next will be as extraordinary as it appears to be.   It would be nice to have a truly original book to review.