by Greg Buchanan
SYNOPSIS
On a lonely farmstead, a 70-year-old woman falls down outside and, unable to move, is consumed overnight by two of her pigs.
It seems like a tragic accident, except the woman was well-known photographer Sophia Bertilak - and inside her house, someone has removed all her photos from their frames, seemingly erasing her past...
The first photo Sophia ever took remains her most infamous: a missing girl who was never seen again. Forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen is drafted in for the post-mortem - and slowly becomes obsessed with the victim, her family, and the crimes she brought to light decades ago.
As Cooper pulls on a dark thread of deception, secrets and lies, she begins to unravel the case - as well as herself...
REVIEW
Cooper Allen works as a forensic veterinarian and consults for the police on any investigations that involve animals. Standard cases she tends to deal with would be regarding abuse or neglect, but as she attempts to relax on a dreaded family break, Cooper is asked to help out by the local police force when an elderly woman is found to have died and then been eaten by the two pigs she kept on her property.
This is an extremely unusual but not unheard of situation. However, as Cooper works on the case can't shake the nagging feeling that there is something much more sinister going on. Overstepping her duties by getting personally involved with the victims family members, Cooper starts to unravel a mystery that goes back generations, and it all starts with a missing girl and a series of haunting photographs in the woods.
After being such a big fan of Sixteen Horses, I was so thrilled to hear that Cooper was returning. She is fundamentally flawed but as this story develops we begin to learn so much more about her and gain an understanding of how her past and her family life have led to the issues she has with relationships and her mental health. Unlike Sixteen Horses, which was very much focussed around the police investigation Cooper was assisting on, I felt that the case in this story (or at least, Cooper's interaction with the case on an official level) took a smaller role which allowed the book to become more of a character study. It was possible to take a really in depth look at each of the characters and how they all fitted together, and this was necessary. At just over 500 pages, Consumed was intense, complex, incredibly detailed and dark, but I was completely transported and involved with the mystery from the first page right up until the last.
As the historic case of the missing girl is brought into the present day, the story is interspersed with epistolary elements including emails, transcripts from true crime podcasts, medical records and entries from threads on online forums. This is probably my favourite crime fiction sub-genre and it was a brilliant way to break up what could have been quite a heavy narrative.
Greg Buchanan's writing is a bit like Cooper's character - uncompromising, fearless and willing to push the boundaries to get results. With both Sixteen Horses and Consumed, I'm sure that the basis of both of these stories (and the choice to include animals in the cases) could be quite polarising for readers. However, I feel like he writes whatever needs to be written to make the story work in the best way possible, rather than writing a story that will have the biggest appeal, which makes these two book completely unique.
If, like me, you enjoy a dual narrative, intricate murder mystery which goes to some pretty dark places, then you will love this book. Maybe not for the faint-hearted, but Consumed has definitely made it into my top reads of the year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Buchanan is a BAFTA-longlisted writer for interactive and screen. His acclaimed debut novel SIXTEEN HORSES was selected for BBC Two's Between The Covers and was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. A TV adaptation produced by Gaumont Television is on the way. Twitter: @gregbuchanan and Instagram: @gregbuchananwriter
Thanks to Compulsive Readers, Orion Publishing - @orionbooks and Greg Buchanan - @gregbuchanan for the opportunity to read and review.
Publisher: Orion Genre: Crime Fiction / Forensics / Thriller
ISBN: 978-1398712713
Pages: 528pp
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