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Unmarked Graves
By Shaun Hutson
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If you like stories
with zombies in them you may enjoy Unmarked
Graves. The story begins in Africa, but the
biggest part of it is set in the fictional English
town of Darworth. The town has seen a recent explosion of racially
motivated crimes and investigative telejournalist Nick Pearson has
decided that he wants to go to Darworth and do a show about it.
Nick needs to complete some preliminary investigations before he can do
his
show though, and he feels that having a camera crew in tow may put
people off from talking to him, so he travels to Darworth alone. Nick's
reasoning is sound, but his boss is a little worried about Nick being
alone in the town because Nick is black and his colour might
make him a potential target.
It does not take Nick long to discover that the African refugees living
in the town distrust the local authorities. They feel that they are
victimised and that nobody cares. Local thug Stephen Kirkland
sees things differently. He feels that the black are allowed to get
away with murder. Kirkland tells Nick that his brother was killed by a
black man and that he believes that police did not investigate the
crime as thoroughly as if a white man had been responsible.
Detective Sergeant Martin Bishop, on the other hand, denies that the
police discriminate in any way. Bishop tells Nick that he is interested
in the crimes not the colour of peoples skin. Bishop is an important
character in the story and he is kept very busy. When some of vehicles,
belonging to refugees, are torched in the night, it is Bishop who is
put in charge of the investigation. But what starts out as a case of
arson becomes a murder inquiry when a body is found in the back of one
of the burnt out vans. Matters become further confused when the
pathologist's report reveals that the man did not die in the fire, but
had already been dead for three months and that there are some strange
x-shaped marks carved into the body. It is a good job that the
pathologist got to work on the body so quickly because it goes missing
a few hours later. The police dust for prints of course, but the only
prints that they find belong to members of staff; with one exception:
they also find the corpse's fingerprints. This rather strange incident
adds further pressure to the overworked Bishop because he now has a
case of body snatching to contend with as well.
As I stated earlier, Bishop is an important character, but Nick is the
central character in the story and he and Bishop begin working together
after Nick discovers that the local cemetery has been desecrated.
Strange thing have been done with the corpses and some of them bear
similar marks to those on the corpse from the burnt-out van. Nick has
seen similar marks before, when he was working in Liberia and he has an
idea who may be responsible: a man name Victor Mowende. Mowende is a
practitioner of a type of an African voodoo called Uthalande and the
last time they met, five years ago, Mowende tried to have Nick killed.
Unmarked Graves
is a very dark story and the very first page begins
with a mutilated body in a bath. Shaun Hutson is a writer with
excellent descriptive skills so I would not recommend the book to
readers who are squeamish or faint of heart. If you are already
familiar with Hutson's work though, you will have an idea what to
expect.
I
would not say that any of the characters in Unmarked Graves are
particularly lovable. They are okay, but I never grew to
care about them a great deal and I consider Unmarked Graves
more of an
idea driven book than a character driven one. It is a scary book
though. My favourite scenes occur in the final chapters when Nick and
Bishop are exploring some condemned flats that are situated at basement
level underneath the flats where the refugees live. It's dark down
there and although the décor is bad the smell is worse and the
creatures that are causing that smell are the stuff of nightmares.
~
List
of Shaun Hutson books reviewed on this site ~
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