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.
Part police procedural, part feminist tract, in The Dark the forces of law and order are female from the Home Secretary down to the newest plod on the street; and the villains are all men: united as incels or “involuntary celibates” sworn to restore women to their proper subordinate place. But however seductive the aim for some, ridicule threatens and, taking their cue from terrorists, the new movement is about to incorporate a reign of shock and violence.
In full public view a baby is thrown from a bridge into the Thames. Luckily an off-duty cop, Lacey Flint, is close by in her kayak and is able to race the outgoing tide and save the child. Immediately another attempt is made: a pram and its occupant thrown from the same bridge to land on the shore, but two more cops are handy for that one – which turns out to be a doll.
The next strike is against a massage parlour and whatever kind of disruption was intended, things get out of hand and two of the women are stabbed to death but, being prostitutes and trafficked from eastern Europe, their murder fails to further the cause; its adherents achieving more media coverage from an ongoing activity involving closely following lone women at night. While breaking no law, and without making any physical contact, their victims can be reduced to broken wrecks by their heavy-breathing shadows.
The police flounder. Lacey Flint is targeted, partly because she foiled the plot to drown the baby, but mainly for her role as an enigma: there is some mystery that is sensed by her antagonist “Aryan-Boy”, prime mover of the incels. Lacey is a repository of secrets; there are her intriguing visits to a convicted serial killer in Durham Jail, and this may be connected with another happening that originated on Beachy Head twelve years ago when two potential suicides met and parted, and a stolen car containing a corpse went over the edge.
This book is all action in short sharp chapters, with cliff hangers. It lacks humour and the irony is unintended.
The river setting is great fun, the writing style – narrative as well as dialogue – loose, easy and topical; the plot is ridiculous but appealing to anyone, male or female, who reckons they drew the short straw in the sex war.
