Published 20th July 2023 by Orion.
From the cover of the book:
A slick, smart, stylish - and shocking - thriller from one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction.On a lonely farmstead, a 70-year-old woman falls down outside and, unable to move, is consumed overnight by two of her pigs.
It seems like a tragic accident, except the woman was well-known photographer Sophia Bertilak - and inside her house, someone has removed all her photos from their frames, seemingly erasing her past...
The first photo Sophia ever took remains her most infamous: a missing girl who was never seen again. Forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen is drafted in for the post-mortem - and slowly becomes obsessed with the victim, her family, and the crimes she brought to light decades ago.
As Cooper pulls on a dark thread of deception, secrets and lies, she begins to unravel the case - as well as herself...
***********
Forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen is in picturesque Lethwick for a reluctant reunion with her estranged mother and sister. Arriving at the hotel with a few days grace to prepare herself for the forthcoming ordeal, she is in the right place, at the right time, to consult with the local police force on an unusual case. Former renowned photographer, seventy-year-old Sophia Bertilak appears to have suffered a tragic accident, after falling down outside her rural home and having been consumed by her two pigs. Cooper's job is to undertake a post-mortem on the hastily euthanised pigs, to see if she can gather any information about this bizarre death, but there is little left in the way of mortal remains to offer any clues.
With Cooper's part in the investigation over, the police discharge her to continue with her family holiday, but several things about this case tug at her conscience, and she becomes obsessed with finding out exactly what happened to Sophia - especially when she discovers Sophia's link to the infamous disappearance of a young woman, that was never solved. What Cooper does not realise is that her relentless digging will set her on a dangerous path...
Consumed follows the continuing story of forensic vet Cooper Allen, which began in Greg Buchanan's quite brilliant debut novel, Sixteen Horses. Cooper has had a tough few years since the events of the Sixteen Horses investigation, which still haunt her despite undergoing therapy for her psychological scars. She has found it hard to reassemble the fractured pieces of her life, particularly when it comes to being close to another human being, and some of the behaviours she has fallen into keep her very isolated.
Cooper's fragile state causes her to get in too deep in this story, as she latches on to the inconsistencies in the Sophia Bertilak investigation. The heart of the matter lies in Sophia's connection to the case of a missing young woman, Stephanie Earlsham, who was assumed to be dead until Sophia captured her on film in the company of an unknown man in 1964. These photographs made her famous and began her career as a well known photo journalist. In an additional sinister twist, Sophia unintentionally took a photograph of a missing child on the same day. Neither Stephanie, nor the unnamed child, have been traced since.
The storylines of the current police investigation, Cooper's unauthorised digging, and the tension of her family reunion burgeon, branching out into a bevy of delicious threads around past sins and corruption. The timeline jumps around between past and present, but Buchanan does a splendid job keeping a tight grip on each part, building tension as Cooper's tenacity uncovers a complex web of secrets and lies. He gradually draws you in to paint a picture that elicits as many questions as it does apparent answers, until the superb ending brings about an epiphany that shockingly throws a different light on everything you think you know.
This is masterful storytelling, ripe in themes of loss, loneliness, trauma, and alienation, which echo in the experiences of many of the characters, and the way Buchanan weaves many shades of 'consumed' throughout is seriously slick. I am somewhat relieved that he has dialled down the references to animal cruelty this time around, but even so he does not shy away from describing nature as red in tooth and claw (or possibly hoof and snout), and I thoroughly enjoyed the way he examines the complex relationship between animals and humans with real insight. A word here for the superb way in which Buchanan pitches his tent in a very different setting for this story from his debut, and yet floods the whole fabulous book with equally menacing undercurrents, and there is something incredibly unsettling about the way the picturesque backdrop contrasts with the darkness playing out in the foreground. Outstanding!
Greg Buchanan made his mark with Sixteen Horses, breaking through as one of the most exciting new writers in the crime genre, and Consumed confirms that he is far from a flash in the pan. This is, quite simply, one of the finest literary crime novels I have ever had the pleasure to be 'consumed' by. More please, Mr Buchanan!
Consumed is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Orion for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Compulsive Readers Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
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