When The Dead Come Calling by Helen Sedgwick
In the first of the Burrowhead Mysteries, an atmospheric murder investigation unearths the brutal history of a village where no one is innocent.
When psychotherapist Alexis Cosse is found murdered in the playground of the sleepy northern village of Burrowhead, DI Strachan and her team of local police investigate, exposing a maelstrom of racism, misogyny and homophobia simmering beneath the surface of the village.
Shaken by the revelations and beginning to doubt her relationship with her husband, DI Strachan discovers something lurking in the history of Burrowhead, while someone (or something) equally threatening is hiding in the strange and haunted cave beneath the cliffs...
About the author
Helen Sedgwick is the author of The Comet Seekers and The Growing Season, which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year in 2018. The opener to her Burrowhead Mysteries crime trilogy, When the Dead Come Calling, was published in 2020, followed by Where the Missing Gather in 2021. She has an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University and has won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Before she became an author, she was a research physicist with a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University. She lives in the Scottish Highlands.
Review
‘When The Dead Come Calling’ is an atmospheric, chilling, thought provoking read that I found to be unputdownable! The standard of writing was immense, it was such a visual novel for a reader. The images that formed were crisp and clear, the fear and unease radiated off the pages until I physically felt the tension spread over me. I don't normally like when a supernatural edge is put into a police procedural but this book is an exception as I adored it.
DI Strachan is called first thing in the morning to the playground in Burrowhead as a body has been found. It's the local physiotherapist Alexis Cosse and he has been stabbed and tied to the playground. What follows is a storm of hatred - racism, misogyny, homophobia and a feeling of darkness that sweeps over the village.
Maybe this novel affected me so much was because I could recognise the area and the future that it portrayed. My dad lived in Caithness and so much of the economy and population relies on work at Dunreay - the nuclear station based on the north coast. With this closing, ending production I can imagine so many of the locals facing what Fergus goes through in this book. As the plant reduced staff so many of the managers etc moved away and took their wealth and section of the economy away with them. There are socio-economic themes in this book that relate to this area and maybe this is why the book gripped me and held my attention!
I loved all the characters but especially Georgie and Walt! They seem to have that extra special quality that makes you remember them long after you read the book.
I honestly can't wait for the next in the series - look out for my review of ‘When The Missing Gather’ on the 6th May! Thoroughly recommend this one and I believe this series deserves more recognition than it is getting!
