Coverage of THE CHILD GARDEN by CATRIONA McPHERSON

Genre: Whodunnit Mystery

The Plot
The main story is set in 2013 (in effect the present).
Divorced Gloria Harkness lives alone with a dog and some cats in an isolated house in a
rural part of south west Scotland. She works as a government registrar in a nearby town. The
house is let to her by an elderly blind woman, Miss Drumm, who is now in a nearby nursing
home which for a brief time in the 1980s was a New Age hippy school, known as Eden. Also
in the nursing home is Nicky, Glorias teenage son, who has a degenerative terminal illness.
Gloria visits Nicky, and Miss Drumm, daily.
In the grounds of Eden, the hippy school which is now a nursing home, there is a spooky,
dilapidated stone crypt and a rickety bridge crossing a deep gorge with a stream at its bottom.
In May 1985 there was a tragic incident at Eden. During a fun sleep-out-in-the-open night
one of the dozen pupils, Moped, went missing and was found drowned in the stream by the
rickety bridge. How and why this happened was it murder, suicide or an accident? remains
unsolved. Nevertheless the hippy schools head mistress, Miss Naismith, got into considerable
trouble over her presumed negligence for not supervising her pupils more closely and the school
was shut. The eleven surviving pupils all went their separate ways.
However, now in the present day, on a wild stormy night, by sheer coincidence Gloria nearly
crashes in her car into the car of Stig Tarrant, who is her ex-boyfriend and was, crucially, one of
the twelve Eden pupils who slept out in the open the night of tragedy.
After their near miss on the road, Stig follows Gloria to her isolated house and knocks on the
door. He says he recognised her on the road by her distinctive hairstyle. She instantly recognises
him and invites him in. Stig explains he is being hounded by April Cowan, another of the twelve
Eden pupils who slept outside the night of the tragedy, to meet up with him. April claims she has
something urgent to tell him and has the proposed they meet in the dilapidated crypt near the
school-now-nursing home. Somewhat perplexed by Stigs story, Gloria agrees to accompany
him only to find April dead in the crypt clearly a shock to both of them. They ponder whether
to report her death to the police or avoid any hassle by doing nothing.
Nonetheless, the plot thickens when they discover, helped by Glorias access as a registrar to
records of deaths, that others among of the twelve pupils there that night are dead too.
Furthermore, when Gloria revisits the crypt she finds Aprils body has been removed and put in
Aprils flat in Glasgow and the police tipped off about it. Stig is now suspected of her murder.
Equally intriguing, Duggie Morrison Glorias ex-husband and ailing Nickys father was
also one of the twelve pupils on the night of the tragedy. He is still very much alive and kicking
and has a new girlfriend called Zoe. And, in addition, it emerges that it was Stigs father who
financed the setting up of the hippy school and that on the night of the tragedy an unidentified
car was in its vicinity.
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So whats going on? And why, beside Moped and April, are others of the twelve dead?
Could there even be an occult dimension, since outside Glorias isolated house there is an
ancient rocking stone which, legend has it, houses the Devil?
After quite a bit of further investigation into the fates all bad of the remaining twelve it
actually transpires that the person behind it all is Zoe and Zoe is in fact Miss Naismith the
disgraced head mistress at Eden.
Zoes (insane) motive? She had designs on marrying Stigs father, the owner of the mystery
car spotted that night (he was visiting her and they were having an affair), and she felt that the
pupils in being less than truthful about the events of that night resulting in her disgrace
deserved to suffer retribution.
In what way were the pupils less than truthful? Simply that they said she hadnt kept a
proper eye on them. As for the death of Moped? Duggie had chased him to the stream after
Moped had played a prank on him and Moped got stranded on a rope trying to swing over it.
Duggie could have saved him but didnt as Moped refused to apologise for the prank. Instead he
callously left Moped dangling on the rope until his arms gave way and he fell into the water.
As for mass murderer Zoe / Naismith, she is arrested and sent to prison.
Assessment
The plot as described above seems relatively simple, but its details are not it relies on much
intricacy, some of it confusing. The interrelationships between the twelve pupils present on
the night of the tragedy are difficult to keep track of, and characterisation (with the exception of
the three drug addict sisters) is sketchy. Theres also too much description the novels
approximate 75,000 words could lose 10,000 with no one (except the author) noticing
suspense relies on delay, but never on over-delay. Moreover, in places the novel is plodding
and things only come alive in the last 50 pages (assuming the reader gets there).
In short, the last 50 pages are good, but reaching them is hard work. In essence the idea is
better than the execution. One also has to say the author ducks offering explanations for certain
key events. For instance, how on earth did Zoe organise the removal of Aprils body from the
crypt and transport it to Aprils flat in Glasgow? Hardly a straightforward task.
Dramatisation Potential
THE CHILD GARDEN with some fixing could make a good 3 X 1-hour TV drama. The
story could be dealt with in 2 hours, but in my view time would be needed to develop the
characters of the children and Miss Naismith while they were at Eden and, to enhance the
drama, to allow for flashbacks hinting at all the various scenarios that might have happened on
the night of the tragedy. Plainly the plot depends on the audience not knowing that Miss
Naismith and Zoe are the same person so convincing make-up and disguise are a must. The
works feel and authors voice are both very Scottish its setting surely must remain there.
Rating: 5.0/10. Edward Rayne, November 2016.
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