Turning Blue by Benjamin Myers

The new book from last year's Portico Prize winner is a tour de force of stark horror writing

Review by Joshua Potts | 05 Sep 2016

Rural crime fiction in Britain is often hounded by a sense of cosiness, of layers of geniality laid as thick as a buttered scone. Trust Benjamin Myers to swallow those clichés into oblivion, and regurgitate a dark, nasty detective story set in the Yorkshire dales, with barely an iota of compassion for our methods of clinging to what we know.

Comparisons to Cormac McCarthy don’t last beyond the first few pages. Although Myers apes the American master’s terse, biblical prose style – and the extended curiosity about backwoods misfits that shaped McCarthy’s early work – Myers can’t help but delve into his characters’ internal makeup, unearthing the price of a cancerous society that hides its sins in the very places we tend to ignore.

The novel’s opening murder is rendered with an elliptical, savage eye, as lonesome hermit Steve Rutter seemingly spontaneously kills a teenage girl. This sets the surly DS Brindle on his trail, along with a frustrated local journalist who might be stumbling upon a grander mystery in the pitiless hollows of these hills.

The book’s at its best when Myers is describing the landscape and exploring Rutter’s twisted psychology, which mirror one another, placing your imagination in the sensations of a fascinating anti-pastoral figure. The dialogue can be iffy at times, especially when Brindle and his writer compatriot trade barbs over a couple of beers. Generally, though, this is a tour de force of stark horror writhing from any pigeonhole you lump it in.

Out now, published by Moth, RRP £7.99