GREG BUCHANAN’S DEBUT NOVEL ‘SIXTEEN HORSES’

 BOOK REVIEW

TITLE.             SIXTEEN HORSES

AUTHOR.        GREG BUCHANAN

PUBLISHER.    MANTLE 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’

Robert Frost 1922

I read SIXTEEN HORSES only a few months ago and decided to read it again. I felt in my first read through, I rushed it. Never giving enough thought to the page and was too intent on getting to the end. In other words not giving the writing and the writer enough respect. 

This time I took enough time to enjoy the reading and examine the characters. Cooper Allen

seems a strange one and although she was invited in to assist in the investigation it didn’t seem quite right. She is young, trained as a vet then turned herself into a forensic scientist and it appears with very little experience. 

Alec our police detective investigator appears to have been thrust sideways to Ilmarsh. He’s got his own problems too and, so these two characters, trundle on through the story and we begin to know more about them.

Ilmarsh, a seaside parish, blessed it seems with its own rigor mortis, but plays an important part as this location is where it all happened. I found it was a depressing landscape to set any story in but it fits this book well. In many ways it is as important a character as anyone living. And of course it is coastal with the sea eating the land too and what about the island in the near distance?

Ignore the sixteen horses if you can because this story is about the people left behind in the town and on the farms. It is about characters and what they get up to. And what happens in the end and this book ends well. It came to its own conclusion nicely and in its own sad way.

If you want a happy read then don’t pick it up. I enjoyed the journey, the way the chapters unfurl with their own bit and the language is so descriptive. You get the detail with a good pace. It is complex and there are many moving parts so attention is required.

The TV programme, Between the Covers, with Sarah Cox reviewed the book and her guests did not like it. It is of no consequence that it is Greg Buchanan’s first novel because he has been writing from his childhood. 

I was able to get so much more from my second reading and enjoyed it immensely. The story can be viewed as bizarre, strange or very quirky and also brilliant too.

That’s all you will get from me and as always- no plot spoilers.

(I reviewed and blogged it previously on 23rd October)