This Body of Death

Crédit photo New Forest National Park

This Body of Death, which I have just read after rereading one of PD James's best novels, Original Sin, is, according to many readers, one of the best stories by one of America's most British crime writers. This Body of Death clearly surpasses Elizabeth George's first two books, which I have recently reread in their French translation, which did not fully capture the subtleties of the original.

Elizabeth George differs from PD James in that her writing is less classical, her dialogue more realistic and her narration - free indirect discourse - sometimes more colloquial. The persistent use of the word "bloke" or of other British colloquial phrases in this novel is evidence of the author's deliberate choice of slang.

The plot is very well developed, thanks to an original narrative structure: two stories, in two different styles of writing, alternate. Is there a connection between them?

A first criminal case is presented to us, sporadically, in an unusual font. It is a cold, factual, implacably neutral file, in an outside perspective. At first, it sounds like a well-documented sociological journalistic article or a criminological essay. Three children from dysfunctional families or families with a problematic background are guilty of a most sordid murder, with no motive other than gratuitous violence, which could affect more sensitive readers. The chilling account of the facts, followed by accounts of the interrogation of the murderers and their trial and sentence, recurs intermittently, as a palimpsest in the actual novel.

The novel itself tells the story of a Scotland Yard investigation into the murder of a young woman. Here, too, several stories overlap, seen in different perspectives: that of the disappearance of Jemima, who has been in London for several months and has not been heard from for some time. Trying to make up with her friend Jemima on her birthday, Meredith, a young single mother goes to visit her, but finds her neither in the cupcake shop she used to run in a small Hampshire town within the boundaries of the New Forest National Park, nor at the home of her companion, thatcher Gordon Jossie. From then on, Meredith conducted her own investigation on the spot, alternating with, and unbeknownst to, the police investigation orchestrated by New Scotland Yard.

Officially, the case is entrusted to Isabelle Ardery, the acting superintendent, a professional and ambitious woman, in the absence of Thomas Lynley, who has been off work since the murder of his wife Helen, who was pregnant with their child. Isabelle, whose ambition and sometimes infuriating authoritarianism may make her seem unlikable, turns out to be more fragile than she appears. Not only does she call on Inspector Lynley because she quickly realises that she alone will not be able to resolve the many grey areas in the investigation, but she also has many weaknesses. Under pressure from her superiors, but under Lynley's watchful eye, she knows that her future depends on resolving this investigation quickly. When Isabelle opts for Irish coffee over a full breakfast and a proper cuppa, and when the ambitious cop sneaks off to the ladies' room to down a mini bottle of vodka, it is to hide her emotional loneliness and the fact that she has not the custody of her twins. Isabelle's weaknesses, her grave mistakes, her haste to arrest a suspect whom she names as the culprit whereas things are far more complex, her illogical reluctance to continue the investigation in Hampshire are precisely the elements that make the novel interesting. When Barbara Havers and Sergeant Mkata are called back to London, the clues they have followed are lost in the winding lanes of the New Forest.

Curiously, and this is what makes the novel so original compared to many crime novels I have read, the systematic, meticulous account of the investigation not only doubles as Meredith's dogged yet unexperienced, even naive investigation, but the reader also follows the protagonists on the ground, particularly in Hampshire, at a page-turning speed. The different levels of narration underpin the story – at times reminiscent of some Thomas Harris psychological thrillers, or of Patricia Cornwell’s crime novels - in a more subtle way, inviting the reader to conduct his or her own investigation and note that Isabelle Ardery is in a deadlock, not only of her own making. At some points, the narrative moves on and develops almost without the presence of the police, illustrating the extent to which the criminal investigation is out of control.

As in the best of Dickens' novels, in this very good mystery novel by Elizabeth George, all the mysteries are revealed after a gripping denouement and a shocking conclusion.