Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
Here is a situation rather than a plot. A doomed man waits for his pursuers to catch up. Action is subordinate to suspense and the burgeoning dread as everyone anticipates the outcome when the inevitable confrontation occurs.
Initially there was a car crash; Tom’s girl was killed, her family blamed him and put a contract worth half a million on his head. His mate sends him to hole up in the Bothy, a decrepit moorland pub run by Frank, an aged gangster whose surviving menials are broken thugs: sick, dangerous clowns more or less loyal to the boss and hostile to the newcomer. The exception is Cora, Frank’s current young lover: the one person in an unsympathetic ménage who has the guts and the wit to survive and with dignity.
Tom, designed to be an anti-hero, an innocent corrupted by events, comes over more a reluctant hypocrite with a death wish as he waits in a miasma of betrayal and nihilism for the enemy to arrive. He participates in the murder (but not the torture) of the advance scouts - but he goes out into the snow at night to rescue a man who wants to kill him.
Tom is complicated and confused, an irresolute fellow capable of extreme violence yet possessing more than a streak of compassion, a man ultimately too flawed to stand against, and indeed to merit the redoubtable Cora.
After you’ve endured pages of putrescence and vermin, the ubiquitous filth - and not forgetting those ominous carpentry tools being assembled for use in a soundproof room (echoes of The Night Manager) and the fates of unfortunate victims graphically described, it’s instructive to realize that what is ostensibly a lads’ book is not only a tribute to women but a rather surprising debut. Only it should carry a comfort warning: not to be read at meal times or before bed.
