An Unhallowed Grave is the third book in her Wesley Peterson series. Peterson is a Black police detective who has just been transferred to the quiet village of Stokeworthy. It’s a cozy little place. The only real excitement comes from the increasing development, which is bringing in tourists who disrupt the quiet, to the frustration of the locals. The lord of the local manor is trying to push more development, but is stymied by protestors and by an archeological dig held on the grounds. But again, this is a quiet place where the worst crimes are drug-taking by the local teens. The book opens on two of them creeping into the churchyard at night to do a ritual to see their true loves…but they see a body hanging from a tree instead.
The doctor on scene quickly realizes that the woman hasn’t been hanged but strangled and hung after death. She’s identified at Pauline Brent, a doctor’s receptionist. She’s lived in the village for fifteen years, and is liked by everyone, but no one was really close to her, nor did they really know anything about her. Piecing together her past is the major hurdle for Peterson and his fellow officers to overcome. Of course, readers will already know that the prologue features a young girl being arrested on the charge of murder…
Meanwhile, the dig stumbles on two discoveries in rapid succession. One is a collection of sculptures that formed a Jesse Tree—a design tracking the ancestors of Christ, rising up from Jesse, the father of King David—which have been buried since the Reformation. Also unearthed is the skeleton of another young woman, who’s also been hanged, professionally. Wesley’s college friend Neil Watson is heading the dig, and dives into the local manor records to figure out who this woman was and what she did.
This tying in of a long-distant case to the present is the main hook for the Peterson books, and I liked it here. Obviously, considering the distance, the cases aren’t directly connected, but there are parallels with both deaths that get drawn out throughout the book. The blurb mentions that Ellis is fascinated by “‘armchair archeology” and it shows. These aren’t the only plot threads in the book. Some are more personal, like Wesley’s wife’s search for a nanny for their son. Some are criminal, like the thief stealing items from local churches only to return them a couple of weeks later. It’s to Ellis’s credit that most of these threads end up tying together. Like the two deaths, sometimes the connections are thematic, but they are there. Only the bit with the church thefts doesn’t, to my eyes, go much of anywhere beyond some criminal activity for one of the suspects. Said suspects range from an artist acting shady on the night of the murder to an outsider who threatened the victim to a local politician who seems uninvolved but proves to be deeper in this than it seems.
Wesley is pleasant company. Him and his fellow officers (as for once the protagonist isn’t the one in charge) are well-characterized, and if they aren’t ground-breaking characters they at least stand out (though the one guy trying to sleep with teenagers to the mild annoyance of his colleagues wasn’t great. At least he contributes to the investigation.) The tone is pretty light, actually. That’s not to say that Ellis shies away from human evil, but this is a book where most of the characters are halfway pleasant and where the author isn’t setting up strawmen to knock down. The best example of this comes when Wesley and his boss have to go to a nursing home to talk to Pauline’s former employer. Wesley (and the reader!) except to find a nightmare house where bored, uncaring employees ignore the elderly wasting away, body and mind…and instead are greeted with a pleasant young woman who takes them to the witness, who’s living his best life with mystery novels and his own computer. Wesley is kicking himself.
However, this is a police procedural, not a fair-play mystery. There is some foreshadowing to the killer’s identity, but not much cluing. The end of the book has our heroes switching between two suspects not because of Queenian interpretation and reinterpretation of evidence they already have, but because of new information and some of the characters admitting they lied. It’s a good solution that fits with the book and makes sense, but it’s not something you can really deduce. And, in spite of some good speculation about why the killer would do that, the reason the victim was hanged is disappointing,
And yet, I liked this book. I’m a sucker for any sort of crime influenced by past events, and so I liked seeing everything come together. Ellis is a good writer, and I really enjoyed my time with her. I get why the Puzzle Doctor likes her so much, and I’ll be checking her out again in the future. Recommended.
Other Reviews: In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.
