The novel starts in the rural French Dordogne, in a bucolic village somewhere to the north-east of Bordeaux. The beginning builds as group by group of English visitors arrive at a holiday-let to enjoy a French way of life. There's a slight Home Counties air, with many locals also being from the UK but, for example, owning the village restaurant.
Without over-spoiling, this altogether pleasant lifestyle suddenly changes as one of their number - Chris, a holidaymaker cyclist - is forced from the road by a careening 4x4. Fortunately, two other holidaymakers, the lithesome Meg and Charly, find him. Then things get darker, with a mystery which develops around the initially unnamed church, which displays the whip-touting Guthlac, who I'm inclined to describe as an olden-days warrior-monk from Lincolnshire.
I'm hearing the faint background of Sheryl Crow singing "maybe angels" in Guthlac's troubled head, while the characters play Sinatra, back at the holiday-let.
As I'd hope, the mix of characters are well-up for a mystery, and can use their combined backgrounds to create a superteam, whose blended skills should be able to solve an increasingly darkening puzzle.
The story-telling is mixed with epicurean delights, as there's plenty of French food on offer, and a few riffs on the evolving state of French cuisine in the age of social media. There's also the Zen-like absorption of the cyclist and his preparation for MAMIL-style travel. The main town is something of a citadel, surrounding and protecting the church. The separate holiday-lets and the pool drift towards alchemical symbolism and significance as the story unwraps.
But then, I realise I've been sucked into the mystery. I'm like one of the characters, puzzling over co-incidences, too-good-to-be-true giftings and curious anomalies while musing about Hereward the Wake, Burgh, greenwood and Mandy on the Moon tarot. Part II arrives, and we've flipped to London's media district, around Soho, where more things get piled on to our central characters.
I think I got an inkling of an outcome around now. Chris was being cross-examined by Charly and suddenly I felt a centime begin to drop. DOne on purpose I'm sure to allow me the reader, to check the knotty theory in my head with the increasingly gory occult picture being developed.
An entertaining read.
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