In Bogganmor, Jack Glennison is forced to revisit the distressing events that occurred in the University of Mercia library vault fourteen years previously and discovers that the Head Librarian, Arthur Grainger, absconded shortly after the bizarre night with a book from the University’s special collection, a book thought to have been destroyed…
Glennison must find Grainger and the Liber Umbrae (Book of the Shadow) for the University and personal closure. When Grainger is discovered in a remote hamlet surrounded by marshland to the north of Darkisle, the search for the stolen book takes Jack and Josine deep into the island’s primordial soup, and they are not the only seekers of the shadowy tome…
Bogganmor opens in December 1923, and Drake effortlessly re-absorbs the reader into Jack’s domestic and professional life. It’s a warm, confident, and captivating beginning. Drake’s beautifully lively language is brimming with carefully worked detail and nuanced period references, which often yield clues or provide purpose to the plot.
Nonetheless, this fifth* narrative is structured a little differently, certainly for the first quarter of the story. There is no immediate rush to Darkisle; early chapters focus on Jack’s uneasy return to the University of Mercia, courtesy of his girlfriend, Bea, who now works on campus.
Drake richly layers the story, twisting it with angles and detours. The second, pivotal chapter with Professor Underwood is masterful in understatement, drawing the reader in with wit, irony, and intrigue, as it appears Darkisle’s murky waters may need delving into anew.
Although the theft of the Liber Umbrae initially provides the plot impetus, it becomes apparent that the missing book is but the centre of a tangled web whose fibres stretch compellingly through Darkisle’s preternatural fabric and beyond.
Jack and Josine have barely been on the island for forty-eight hours when recovering the Liber Umbrae becomes secondary to finding the perpetrator of a barbaric murder connected to the book. This gripping whodunnit leads Jack and Josine to the primeval unearthliness steeped in Darkisle ritualism, the “Bogganmor.”
As with previous stories, Charles Deverby acts as the island’s lodestar, dropping fascinating crumbs of information in his usual assured, charismatic manner. Notwithstanding, there is a ruthless streak of self-preservation and interest within Deverby, not to mention a touch of devilry that places doubt on his complete reliability.
Drake tantalizes the reader’s expectations of his plot and characters. Before he physically enters the narrative, Grainger is already in the mind as an esoteric, arrogant master thief with Aleister Crowley tendencies, but as events progress, Drake reveals him as a pathetic, grasping man who is, frankly, out of his depth.
Drake has always been adept at ensuring his culprits hide in plain sight. Consequently, suspicion falls on most of the cast, especially as Drake’s characters, even fleeting ones, are so well-realised, full of vernacular quirks and defining eccentricities. All have secrets and vulnerabilities, weaknesses that Drake gradually discloses or hints at.
None more so than Grainger’s housekeeper, Susan Daley. Her closed, sinister attitude vibrates with obvious guilt. The truth of her involvement is of much darker complexity, the source of which, Izaak Hayward, is one of the more degenerate Darkisle natives that Drake has created.
Conversely, most Indigenous are helpful to Jack and Josine. Attendant Hutchens at the Port Cattrick Lunatic Asylum, in particular, unwittingly opens a tangent with a previous case that unsettles Jack.
Jack is sharp and intent in Bogganmor but conceals anxiety and anger that occasionally flashes through his quick, measured exterior. Interestingly, there is a subtle emotional disconnect between Jack and Josine while they work seamlessly together. Bea’s appearances bookend the story, and Drake plants a couple of red flags about the girl—or they could be red herrings—ensuring that the Jack, Josine, and Bea triangle oscillates gently but intriguingly.
Drake ingeniously mines the depths of Darkisle’s depravity once again in this brilliantly conceived and wonderfully immersive fifth novel. Highly recommended.
*Click here for my review of Falls the Darkness (The Glennison Darkisle Cases Book 4).
*Click here for my review of What Festers Within (The Glennison Darkisle Cases Book 3).
*Click here for my review of Those Under The Hill (The Glennison Darkisle Cases Book 2).
*Click here for my review of The Gathering of Shadows (The Glennison Darkisle Cases Book 1).
