Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
When developers clearing a vacant plot in Berkley uncover the buried bones of a child it causes problems for more than just their investment in some prime real estate. Tasked with identifying the remains Deputy Coroner and exhausted new father Clay Edison finds himself at the centre of an investigation that reaches back to the neighbourhood’s heyday as the headquarters of the counterculture.
Father and son writing team Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman weave together a complex web of plot strands in this excellent third outing for Clay Edison. These include the dark flipside of hippie idealism, the tensions arising from urban renewal and the way families can generate and perpetuate harm.
The Kellerman’s are sensitive to the quirky character of this corner of California and how it is threatened by gentrification. They also show an awareness that the hippy culture and the straight one it reacted against both contained elements of hypocrisy that could be crushing for individuals.
The sleep deprived Edison makes for an engaging central character, juggling the demands of his job with those of his family. A task made all the harder by a fundamental integrity that makes him fear he isn’t doing justice to either.
This is a clever, well plotted and expertly executed novel about the long shadows cast by choices made in the past and the inevitable clash between the jingle-jangle morning of youthful idealism and the grim realities of adulthood.
