The Big Chill – Doug Johnstone
Running private investigator and funeral home businesses means trouble is never far away, and the Skelf women take on their most perplexing, chilling cases yet in book two of this darkly funny, devastatingly tense and addictive new series!
Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.
While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?
Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.
My thanks to Orenda Books for providing a review copy to allow me to participate in the blog tour and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for giving me the opportunity to join the tour.
Picking up from events in last year’s A Dark Matter, Doug Johnstone takes us back to Edinburgh and reunites us with the Skelf family. The Skelf women are three generations of one family and they all work for the family businesses: undertakers and private investigators. As The Big Chill continues the family story is really is advisable to have read A Dark Matter – as both books are excellent reads this should not be too much of a problem.
It would be nice to think that during the six month period between the two books life had been a bit quieter for the Skelf family. Events in A Dark Matter were devastating for the family and a convalecence spell would have been required. As we rejoin their story we learn the youngest Skelf, Hannah, has been attending therapy sessions to help her come to terms with recent events. Hannah’s mother Jenny is also healing and is forging a new relationship while trying (and failing) to leave behind all memories of her ex-husband Craig. It is Jenny’s mother Dorothy that seems to have life more under control than her daughter and grand-daughter. The family matriach is still very much active in the family businesses and as The Big Chill opens we see Dorothy in a cemetry as another client of the Skelf’s is laid to rest. However the deceased does not get their eternal sleep off to the most restful start as a car crashes through the cemetry gates and heads straight at the funeral party only to end up in the open grave.
Dorothy is shaken by the incident and when she learns the driver died in the incident but cannot be identified by the police she begins a personal investigation and tries to trace the young man who nearly ended her life at the end of his own life. Dorothy also has a personal investment in another “case” which requires her investigative skills. She has been tutoring a young teenager who wants to learn to play drums – the girl didn’t show for a lesson and Dorothy goes to visit the girl’s mother to ask after her. Dorothy is puzzled by the reaction of the mother and the girls step-father; both seem upset she is missing yet their reaction to Dorothy’s interest is strange so she takes it upon herself to try and trace her student.
Doug Johnstone keeps all three Skelf women in the spotlight as the book progresses. Each get a chapter where they are the focus and their stories zip along nicely. Although Dorothy is chasing down potential leads to satisfy her personal curiosities it is Hannah’s chapters where the most tragedy seems to arise this time around. Ignoring the fact she works in a funeral home, Hannah appears to be facing a distressing number of deaths. I am trying to avoid steering into “spoiler” territory but early in the book she is preparing to speak at a memorial service for a friend when a random encounter brings fresh hurt and a lot of unanswered questions.
The third Skelf, Jenny, was having a quieter story this time around until suddenly she wasnt. Again I veer away from potential spoilers but as you can see from the blurb (above) her ex-husband is causing problems for the Skelf family and if he gets his way then life for Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah will never be the same again.
I always have a huge sense of anticipation when I pick up a new Doug Johnstone book. He is a wonderful storyteller but he also has a wicked imagination so his books never go where I think they will. I have given up on trying to second guess where the Skelf story is heading I just strap myself in and let him take me on the emotion rollercoaster. Love these stories – you should all be reading them.
The Big Chill is published by Orenda Books and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0885ZNW86/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1