Not in My Back Yard

As critic Jim Winter explains in his January Magazine piece this morning, there’s plenty of tension, multiple crosses and double-crosses, and plots twisted within plots to be appreciated in Skin and Bones, the brand-new novel from British writer Tom Bale (the pseudonym of David Harrison, author of 2006’s Sins of the Father). This book’s set-up makes the complex nature of its tale quite clear, as Winter relates it:

It starts off quietly enough. Julia Trent ventures to the tiny hamlet of Chilton, north of London, to clean out her recently deceased parents’ home. On a quiet January morning, Julia finds herself stalked by a man with a gun. He’s already murdered several people in the village. She runs, hoping to get away, and is saved by Philip Walker, the hamlet’s anti-development crusader. Walker’s been shot already, but he stares down the killer, a local man named Carl Forester, known for being a bit mental as it is. Walker threatens Forester and is shot again, this time fatally. Just when Julie thinks all is lost, a man in a motorcycle helmet arrives. She’s saved.

Or so she thinks. But the motorcycle man takes Forester’s life, then turns his gun on Julia, who is hiding in a tree. When she falls, he leaves her for dead and flees.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, Julia’s story about a second killer is discounted -- she was badly injured, after all, and presumably confused. It’s assumed that Forester committed his deadly deeds and then turned his weapon on himself. However, Craig Walker, Philip’s son, knows differently.

You’ll find the full January review here.