Michael Malone is a Scottish
poet who has previously turned his hand to psychological thrillers (A Suitable
Lie), has a more than passing interest in crime fiction as a
reviewer for Crimesquad, and with House of Spines presents his crime
fiction debut. And anyone who thinks poets should not write crime fiction
better be prepared to re-evaluate that position.
The book
pulls together and revisits a number of literary genres that I had assumed were
long “dead and buried”, largely it appears a measure of my ignorance. The
principal genre being in this instance the haunted house scenario which will
invoke Rebecca’s Manderley, and, even further back, Jane Eyre’s Thornfield.
Thus Malone introduces us to Newton Hall, a daunting book-lined mansion in the
leafy Glasgow suburb of Bearsden. The hall has been bequeathed to Ranald,
quickly reduced to Ran, McGhie in the will of a great uncle, relative of Ran’s
mother. Over a number of years the great uncle, Alexander Fitzpatrick, has
followed Ran’s progress with a kindly eye and a guilt complex which dates back
to the eviction of Ran’s mother from Newton for daring to fall in love with a
his father, an erstwhile member of the proletariat, and someone therefore
totally unsuitable for inclusion in the Fitzpatrick dynasty.
However, in
Ran’s case it is a bit inappropriate to talk of progress. He is bi-polar, an
apparent effect of either his mother’s overbearing attentions, or his discovery
of both parents dead, in a presumed suicide pact, on his return from school one
afternoon. Yet he has experimented with university and marriage
(failing at both), survived a period sectioned for psychological
care, subsists on journalistic and writing scraps thrown to him occasionally by
a London agent, and exists, by himself in a small tenement flat,
until he is confronted by ownership of Newton and the prospect of a
relatively secure future.
Lucky old
Ran, you might venture. But life at Newton is no bed of roses. It comes
equipped with a seductive, but threatening spectre, an outcome of the
indiscretions of previous Fitzpatricks, which soon threatens to take over Ran’s
precarious existence. Add to that the discovery of two new cousins, Marcus and
Rebecca, an evil pair who have inherited a share of the Fitzpatrick
dosh but would like a lot more of it. Those features do rather take the edge
off the spines of books, the luxurious swimming pool, as well as the kindly
attentions of Mr and Mrs Hackett, the Fitzpatrick’s loyal old retainers.
Newton
compels Ran to revisit his history – his relations with his mother and father,
and the background to their death, with his ex-wife Martie, and primarily with
the Fitzpatrick dynasty and their ancestral pile. It’s a lonely and painful
experience which Malone draws the reader into with the greatest of ease. House
of Spines is a very accomplished crime fiction debut which might just
persuade Michael Malone to put the poetry on the backboiler.
