The Cadaver Game by Kate Ellis

The Cadaver Game is a chilling crime  story beginning with a hunt. We're in Devon, not long after the ban on fox-hunting, but if you waft a hundred pounds under the noses of a few willing teenagers, you can set up a hunt with human quarry. Only this time it all goes horribly wrong, and instead of being tagged and sent off back to get dressed - yes, did I tell you, the kids are chased in nothing but their running shoes? - two young people are shot.

The case bears a resemblance to events at Catton Hall in the early part of the nineteenth century, as recorded in the journals of the squire’s unpleasant jester who acts as entertainment officer as well as his steward, excerpts of which are woven into the narrative. This at times makes for grim reading, involving acts of terror and violence, plus slavering hounds. 

At modern-day Catton Hall, a famous artist has paid Richard Catton a large fee to excavate a buried picnic from sixteen years before. The whole process is to be filmed and displayed at the Tate Modern, and running the dig is DI Wesley Peterson’s chum Neil Watson. A load of pretentious nonsense according to some, but things take a darker turn when an old skeleton is discovered in a bin liner among the buried china and glassware.

But before Wesley and Gerry and the team can get stuck into either case, an anonymous emergency call sends a squad car to the address of a single woman, found dead in her bedroom. The body is a couple of weeks old, her face barely recognisable. The house belongs to a jeweller and her phone isn’t picking up but everyone says she’s in France on holiday.

There’s a lot going on, and the same characters seem to crop up in many of the scenarios, so the wily reader is eager to spot connections. But until the dead woman can be identified, Wesley and co are running around in circles. It doesn’t help that an officer of Wesley’s is a cousin to one of the dead teenagers. Emotions are high and there are lots of buried secrets among the bones as well as skeletons in the closet.

The Cadaver Game is a terrific police procedural on the one hand and an interesting glimpse at a corner of history on the other. Ellis has ticked all the boxes for setting and atmosphere, as well as keeping lots of plots and subplots bubbling away. But at the end of the day, this is a novel about character and the darker turns of the human heart. The ending has a few twists which I didn’t see coming plus a nail-biting showdown involving armed police.

In short The Cadaver Game is a brilliant read and coming in at number 16 (out of 24), you know there are plenty more in the series to enjoy. This is the first one for me and it didn’t seem to matter that I haven’t read the books in order. I shall definitely be popping back to Devon to check in on Wesley and Neil some time soon.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Cadaver Game