#indiechallenge – Common Murder (Val McDermid)

The blurb

Common Murder finds journalist Lindsay Gordon at the peace camp on Brownlow Common, reporting a case of alleged assault by Deborah, a peacewoman, on Rupert Crabtree, Chairman of the local opposition to the camp.

Then the body of Crabtree is found on common ground, victim of a vicious attack, and Deborah is accused of murder. Lindsay is plunged into an investigation with far-reaching political implications, in which no one – be they ratepayer or reporter, policeman or peacewoman – is wholly above suspicion.

The author

Val McDermid is of course a very big name in crime fiction these days; this was only her second novel, and the biography in the front talks more about her career as a journalist and her NUJ activity.

The publisher

The Women’s Press now seems to be defunct, but it used to put out a lot of feminist fiction and non-fiction. Its steam iron logo and stripy black-and-white spines are still worth keeping an eye out for when browsing charity shop shelves.

The bookshop

This was another one from the Book Bus.

The bingo card

This could count towards: ‘Genre fiction’; ‘Book from a series’; ‘A Women’s Press’; ‘A book from my TBR’; ‘A press over 20 years old’ (The Women’s Press made it to at least 30 before disappearing); or ‘LGBTQIA’.

My thoughts

This seemed like an appropriate choice for International Women’s Day and the first day of this year’s IndieAthon.

Set in a thinly disguised Greenham Common, this was a diverting murder mystery which veered off into sensationalist spy thriller territory towards the end (I wasn’t complaining; I like spy thrillers!) but it was just as absorbing as a reflection of the world of journalism and the politics and preoccupations of the 1980s.

McDermid’s observation of the crossover between different groups, and the fault lines within groups, is very sharp, and the way she portrays the uncomfortable sense that one isn’t doing enough for the cause of the moment feels just as relevant today. Lindsay, on the edge of two worlds as a self-described hack in a relationship with the highbrow writer Cordelia as much as in her compromised dealings with press, police, and protesters, makes a convincing character. I loved the depiction of lesbian subculture (one character runs a restaurant called ‘Rubyfruits’) and the casual assumption that the reader will find their way around it (recognising the jargon puts them ahead of at least one plot development). I’ll be keeping an eye out for the rest of the Lindsay Gordon series.