Undiscovered Scotland

 

"A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders" is Malcolm Archibald's second outing for James Mendick, now a Sergeant Detective with Scotland Yard. The opening chapter finds Mendick arriving by sea in Dundee in March 1849, a year after the events that took place in "The Darkest Walk", the enjoyable first book in what we hope will become a longer series. Mendick is, we find, a native of Dundee, but he returns still deeply scarred by his childhood experiences in the city. His objective is a simple one, to collect a prisoner and get back onto a ship bound for London as quickly as possible.

But it doesn't quite work out that way, and Sergeant Mendick becomes involved in the hunt for the perpetrator of a truly gruesome murder carried out in a locked room of a trader's premises. One name keeps coming up in connection with the murder, "China Jim", and it increasingly seems to the police that the murder is somehow tied up with an attempt to take over Dundee's criminal underworld by someone with a Chinese connection. Yet no-one has ever seen anyone of Chinese origin in Dundee, and then another victim turns up, as gruesomely mutilated as the first, yet apparently unconnected with him. And when a soldier meets a grisly end it leads to riots in the streets.

At the heart of the book is an intriguing mystery that becomes deeper as the book progresses, and the twists and turns, for the murder enquiry and for Mendick on a more personal level, are unpredictable and engaging. The result is both an excellent crime novel, and an excellent historical novel. What really brings the book to life beyond the well crafted plot is the loving and often deeply grimy detail in which the Dundee of 1849 is drawn by Malcolm Archibald. The city becomes a leading character in the novel and we find ourselves navigating its often non-too salubrious streets alongside Mendick and his colleagues as they close in on a conclusion that is as shocking as it is unexpected. We enjoyed "The Darkest Walk", and feel that this second in the series sees Archibald and Mendick both getting into a very assured stride to produce a novel that is even better. We also feel the setting of Dundee suits Mendick perfectly. Let's hope he's back there soon...