It’s summer in the Lake District and heavy rain over the fells has uncovered a bizarrely tattooed body.

I liked the unlikely friendship between Dr Jane Gresham and 13 year old Tenille, who had been written off because of her background. There was some part that included a forensic investigation, but this was in connection with the mystery of a body found in a peat bog, not in connection with any of the crimes. I loved the characters in this stand alone book (book without a sequel) and liked the combo of Tenille and Jane. But the landscape shifts when Liffey discovers that a paramilitary group of Asian-Americans has taken an interest in Soon-Lin Kim’s student project.A superb psychological thriller in which present-day murder has its roots in the eighteenth century and the mutiny on the Bounty. Boasting blurbs from such notable authors as Harlan Coben, Tess Gerritsen and Joseph Finder, this could be McDermid's break-out book.

Setting a mystery in the epicenter of a war zone challenges the genre conventions, but it doesn’t change the rules. Set in Manchester, England, which its natives claim as the home of rock 'n' roll, the forthright and unpretentious sleuth introduced in this fast-paced story is sure to win readers' hearts. Gresham is a Wordsworth scholar who believes that Fletcher Christian made it back to the UK after the mutiny and told his friend William Wordsworth about Blyth 'liking men. The first two or three chapters of this book didn't feel much like McDermid's usual style of criminal detection but as I read more I became hooked and found it hard to put down until I got to the end. My thoughts: In all honesty, I started reading this book three times and couldn't get into it before this last time.An interesting mix of historical facts and fiction in a contemporary setting based around the premise that a newly unearthed tattooed body in a Lakeland peat bog is the Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian. A cold winter day and a couple of sleepy cats, however, proved the right formula for finishing this book. Val McDermid, as ever, is adept at engendering irresistible suspense, as the fearsome attractiveness of the ever more benighted and bloody predicament works its effect on readers. I am not a great Wordsworth fan but have visited Dove Cottage and am familiar with that area of the Lake District. Put together all this along with several others on the hunt and you have a complicated but enjoyable mystery.

Snippets of a manuscript are provided at the end of the chapters, so we can get to hear the story as it was told to the one who recorded it. Here's the thing: I read McDermid's A Place of Execution and thought it was an astoundingly brilliant mystery. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. This in turn sets up the prospect of a undiscovered Wordsworth manuscript that could never have been revealed in the poet’s lifetime. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom.This tale of murder in the Lake District isn't the tour de force that Execution was, and I could quibble with the thinly drawn characters (Jake and Matthew seem to exist just to create difficulties for the protagonist, in an effort to make her more likeable, since she isn't tremendously likeable on her own) and with the process-of-elimination solution (who has the knowledge, the opportunity, and is willing to cheat on his boyfriend to further his career? This is a believable story that takes facts and spins an amazing tale of adventure, disappointment and murder and ties the past with present day in a very credible way.