Many thanks to Orenda Books and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the advance copy of "The Bone Mother" for review.
Last year, I reviewed a mystery novel closely entwined with Welsh myth and folklore. A book of strong contrasts, the ceremonies and rituals were either life-affirming or in the wrong hands, required ghastly sacrifices. It was an ingenious mix of traditional genre elements and historical legends. In "The Bone Mother", Suzy Aspley blends ancient tales from the Scottish highlands and modern mystery aspects to similar effect.
The story centers around a sacred place in the highlands known as the Cailleach shrine:
she disappears at Beltane on the 1st May."
"The Bone Mother" opens with an unnamed woman at the shrine on May 1st. She has brought out the shrine offerings from their winter shelter. They include sacred stones and bones, many of them animal skulls. People also leave rosary beads, flowers, and pieces of white quartz. Before the woman leaves, she tucks her bracelet, with an exquisite gold hammer talisman, under the turf at the shrine. This sacred place needs all the protection it can get; a developer wants to flood the location to create a hydroelectric dam. The conflict between the old ways and inevitable (and in this case, destructive) progress is one of the central themes of the book.
The book moves forward to October, as Samhain is approaching. A railway man, Arthur Brooks, is walking the train tracks to check for any damage or obstructions. Brooks sees something shiny and to his horror, finds a severed human ear, wearing a small gold earring in the shape of a hammer. His foreman immediately calls the police.
On the same day, Martha Strangeways is in Glasgow, waiting for a train with her son Dougie, who's returning to university. Martha is a journalist and a central character of the previous books who has undergone unimaginable tragedy: her twins burned to death in a house fire, and Martha subsequently left her job as an investigative journalist. Dougie is her only surviving child. Martha is not the only one who suffered great loss from that event and we gradually learn about the others as the story unfolds.
"The Bone Mother" then turns to Emma, who recently joined a Facebook group called "Sofa Sistas". It's administered by an anonymous woman calling herself "Beira", (another name for the Cailleach deity). Beira encourages members to make a "pilgrimage into the heart of Scotland’s wild places" ending at the Cailleach shrine. Through the Messenger app, Beira reaches out to selected women to tell them that making this journey will help draw attention to the shrine and stop the dam from being built. Emma eagerly volunteers to take the trip. Beira sends her the same items she's sent the others: a map, a list of people who are willing to host the travelers along the way, and a protective talisman.
One of the hosts is Orla, a close friend of Martha's. She is pregnant and very close to her due date. The baby's father is Peter Locke, but he's unable to support Orla when she really needs him. He is in church residential care, suffering from deep trauma from the same fire that killed Martha's children. so Orla is grateful for Emma's company. At the same time, she's very concerned that Emma is making the trip to the shrine alone. Although she tries to persuade her to postpone the journey, Emma is adamant about her plans and after a few days with Orla, resumes her pilgrimage.
Emma is traveling in the footsteps of Joanna, who actually reached the shrine and posted celebratory pictures on Facebook. Emma hopes that all the women who've made the trip can get together and share stories. They already have one thing in common: a talisman that Beira sent them for "protection". That talisman is a piece of jewelry in the shape of a hammer, which matches the earring that Arthur Brooks found in the severed ear on the railway tracks. Are these "protective" talismans actually marking these women for death?
As it happens, Orla referred Martha to the Sofa Sistas group as a potential host, but Martha is not enthused about being "linked to some bloody women’s group that involved walks and hosting people in her house for free." Then, she gets a call from her former employer at The Standard, who thinks the ear found on the railway line would make a good story. Martha's journalistic instincts kick into gear. She calls her old friend, Detective Derek Summers, to suss out what he knows about the gruesome find. He tells her that other than the ear and its earring, there is no other evidence and no clue who the person is, other than a female.
Well, what with women hiking solo through the Scottish Highlands, based on the word of someone on Facebook they've never met, something is obviously Not Right about "Sofa Sistas". Martha makes the connection after learning that both Orla and Emma are connected to the group. Her uneasiness grows when she can find no sign that the other girl, Joanna, ever came back from her walk. Martha decides to retrace Emma's steps, but the train she's taking to Oban is stopped by a herd of sheep blocking the tracks (this IS Scotland). She steps outside to get some air at the very moment the sheepherder's daughter makes a gruesome find.
The police are already on the scene and ever the journalist, Martha takes a picture of the hand before they close off the area. She sends the picture to her police pal, Derek Summers, saying "Looks like we have another victim". She's sure that the ear and the hand belong to women from Sofa Sistas.
The plot thickens when Sophie, the daughter of Adam Wilding, (the developer whose dam project will flood the shrine), decides to make the same pilgrimage. She's hoping that her support will change her father's mind. Since Martha has been monitoring the Sofa Sistas Facebook group, she sees a picture of Sophie. Ominously, she's wearing a tiny golden nose stud in the shape of a hammer. Martha decides that finding the creator of the jewelry is critical. Luckily, she knows someone who can help: Dr. Brigid Russell, who met Martha when she was covering the conflict in Bosnia. She's a forensic expert who helped to identify remains by analyzing their possessions. Brigid becomes visibly disturbed when examining the jewelry, but refuses to say any more. On the train afterward:
Brigid should have been more open with her friend. Her knowledge would have taken Martha and Summers one step closer to solving the case.
If Beira formed the Sofa Sistas group to protect an ancient shrine, she's dreamed up a pretty sadistic way of doing it. Unless Adam Wilding gives up his plans for the dam (which he shows no signs of doing) Beira will continue luring women to the site with sinister intent. Things take an unforeseen turn when Wilding finds out that his daughter Sophie is a Sofa Sista and is on her way to the shrine. It's a race against time to find the person with a close affinity to the Cailleach and a decidedly murderous bent.
Martha and Summers gradually begin to put the pieces together, but they cannot begin to imagine the twisted motives of the killer. The stakes are high and the book builds to an intensely suspenseful ending. I tried to guess Beira's identity with no effect and the final reveal is truly shocking. Aspley's dark story challenges the notion of what "protection" really means, and the lengths to which people will go to preserve the things they love.
Originally from the north-east of England, former journalist Suzy Aspley has lived in Scotland for almost thirty years. She writes crime and short stories, often inspired by the strange things she sees in the landscape around her. She won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect in 2019 with the original idea for her debut novel and was shortlisted for the Capital Crime New Voices Award. In 2020, she was mentored by Jo Dickinson as part of the Hachette future bookshelf initiative. Crow Moon was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and shortlisted for the Val McDermid Debut Award and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. When she’s not writing, she’s either got her nose buried in a book, or is outside with her dogs dreaming up more dark stories. She lives in Stirlingshire with her family.
Please buy/order "The Bone Mother" from your local independent bookstore, or go to bookshop.org and order there. They now offer ebooks as well.
For audiobooks, go to libro.fm.
