I Died At Fallow Hall

Sam's Review 

I had a promo copy of I Died At Fallow Hall, the debut novel from Bonnie Burke-Patel, thrust into my hands by the author’s mother last May. She had just moved to Bristol, where I own a bookshop, and was insistent we should have a launch event for her daughter’s book. I was wary, as I always am when parents, whose objectivity may not be that objective, insist on their child’s brilliance. Then I read the first few pages and realised that her pride was well-placed.
 
Set in the fictional Cotswold village of Upper Magna, I Died At Fallow Hall centres on Anna Deerin, recently arrived from London to carve out a life of self-sufficiency in the grounds of the titular hall. We join her tending to the earth - "the rust and microbes in the soil sometimes staining patches on her hands" - and immediately understand that while this may be a murder mystery, it's one that will unfold slowly. Atmosphere, the emotional undercurrents of the characters, their sense of duty, and Burke-Patel's sense of place tell the story. The plot develops as patiently, and as creepingly, as Anna's garden.
 
It is Anna's discovery of bones under her vegetable patch that literally and metaphorically digs up the past and starts "some sort of domino fall". As the police, led by another village newcomer and London escapee, Hitesh Mistry, try to identify the remains, Anna feels inextricably drawn towards the woman who "had been left to rot down with leaf mould". She joins Hitesh in asking questions around the village and, in doing so, becomes a target, her cottage broken into in the middle of the night, an act that makes clear "...how thin the line is between civilisation and violence." 
 
The theme of women's vulnerability undulates uneasily throughout. The locals list any number of cleaners, young mothers and women who drifted out of sight and out of mind. Many presume the victim must have come from elsewhere, a drug addict or itinerant worker passing through. Someone not important enough to notice; as Hitech wryly comments: "We've always liked out victims pure.” In amongst present day events, we are privy to a young woman's diary entries from 1967. We watch her struggle from under the strict gaze of her father and ultimately fulfil her desires. But in doing so, has she angered someone enough to become the woman in Anna's garden? It seems sadly inevitable that this will be the case. And, sadly, it seems so little has changed in almost sixty years.
 
As the damp earth and smell of cut grass seeps into Anna's skin, so I Died At Fallow Hall seeped into my thoughts. It's a tender and gently wrought narrative; a mystery which asks when will women be free to carve out a life unburdened by the expectations of others, free from the threat of violence? We must tend to these questions with the care and diligence that Anna tends to her garden, and as Bonnie Burke-Patel has tended to these pages.
 
I Died At Fallow Hall is available in store now, priced at $32.99.

Publisher's Review 

A thought-provoking, genuinely contemporary take on the country house murder mystery: the perfect combination of literary and crime novel.

'Burke-Patel's debut is both a traditional country-house mystery and an examination of loneliness, the difficulty of making connections with others, and how hard it can be to escape the roles imposed on us by family and society' - Guardian

'Superbly and elegantly written... executed with skill, finesse and considerable compassion. A very impressive debut from a fully-formed writer' - Irish Independent

Anna Deerin moves to a remote Cotswold cottage to become a gardener, trying to strip away everything she's spent all her life as a woman striving for, craving the anonymity and privacy her new off-grid life provides.

But when she clears the last vegetable bed and digs up not twigs but bones, the outside world is readmitted.

With it comes Detective Inspector Hitesh Mistry, who has his own reasons for a new start in the village of Upper Magna.

Drawn in spite of herself to this unknown woman from another time, Anna is determined to uncover her identity and gain recognition for her, if not justice.

As threats to Anna and her new life grow closer, she and DI Mistry will find that this murder is inextricably bound up with issues of gender, family, community, race and British identity itself -- all as relevant in decades past as they are to Anna today.