Taxidermy

Just finished reading The Taxidermist's Daughter, by Kate Mosse and it's had quite an effect on me. I've read other Mosse titles (Labyrinth & Sepulchre spring to mind) so I knew she doesn't fight shy of a bit of unpleasantness, but this still had a few shock points to deliver. I won't spoil the story for you (I don't put spoilers in reviews) so it's hard to give you a detailed summary of what it's about. It's set in 1912, though for some reason the pictures in my mind were set much earlier than that. I don't think the actual date is important really. The story would have worked over a couple of centuries, I think.

Connie Gifford lives with her father in an isolated house on the edge of a marsh in the Sussex village of Fishbourne.  He's a taxidermist, though he prefers the title "stuffer of birds". He's also a drunk. Connie can't remember her childhood, owing to an accident that her father refuses to discuss. It left her with amnesia and occasional petit mal seizures. It's clear from the start that something is odd in the village. A weird ritual goes awry when strangers turn up to watch it, and hundreds of songbirds fly out of the church when someone opens the door. Lots of the birds die, setting the tone for the remainder of the book.

A few days later a woman's body is found near Connie's house, apparently drowned, but actually having been strangled by a length of taxidermy wire. Connie is concerned for her father's state of mind, because since the ritual he has been drinking more heavily than usual. Could he be responsible for the murder? And just who can Connie trust from the village and elsewhere?

I'd like to say that I didn't work it all out before the reveal, but that's not true. About a couple of hundred pages before the end I knew 'whodunnit' and I was pretty certain why. Let's face it, writing that kind of background makes it fairly obvious that the climax of the story must be connected to Connie's accident, though the actual details were grislier than I dreamed in my mind's eye. As a writer of sorts I am perturbed when I create truly cruel or gory scenes. Let's just say I'd be really worried if I'd described what Ms Mosse delivers in this book.

Having said that, I would recommend it as a creepy mystery book. There's a bit of history included, and an awful lot of technical detail about what's involved in the craft of taxidermy. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to carve a chicken again without qualms.