Blacklands

Lettie Lamb would have a heart attack if she knew her twelve-year-old son Steven was mailing cryptic letters to a convicted serial killer, Arnold Avery. The lonely, depressed boy is desperate to find the missing corpse of his long dead Uncle Billy who was a victim of the notorious Van Strangler. Initially, Avery is elusive about revealing clues as to where Uncle Billy is buried. However, upon learning that Steven is a child, Avery intends upon manipulating him in order to resume his killing spree. Belinda Bauer has expertly crafted a psychological thriller that is extremely frightening and haunting in its plausibility. Ripped from today's headlines, "Blacklands" is a novel of an abused child who yearns for acceptance from his mother and grandmother. He hopes to earn their love by finding Uncle Billy's corpse. Arnold Avery is the ultimate child predator. He represents all those who surf the internet, hoping to correspond with underage children and lure them into a clandestine relationship. It happens far too often. Steven is the novel's central character. Most of it is told from his point of view. He is a lovable child and my heart broke for him when he was cruelly spurned by his mother and grandmother, chased and beat up by the school bullies, betrayed by his best friend and manipulated by Avery. My pulse raced fiercely when I imagined the filthy child murderer laying his hands on poor Steven. I thought of him as my own child. The setting is very gothic. Stephen lives in a small, quaint village of Shipcott in England. He has spent the last three years digging up earth on the cold, damp, fog enshrouded grounds of Exmoor where the corpses of three children were discovered after Avery's arrest. Avery is incarcerated in the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit of Longmoor prison, which is surrounded by the same type of moors upon which Steven has been digging. Some of the novel's most dramatic scenes occur within Longmoor's walls. Avery's abuse by prison guards and other inmates culminates in a heart pounding riot that is reminiscent of the hit HBO series "Oz." "Blacklands" is a taut, gripping debut novel from Belinda Bauer, former journalist and screenwriter. Inspired by true life crimes, she wondered how the murder of a child would affect a family for generations. Indeed, "Blacklands" is one of the most original, most unusual, most horrifying crime novels I've read. One can't help but hope that her next novel will be as intriguing and suspenseful. Joseph B. Hoyos

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer Steven Lamb is twelve years old and spends his days with a rusty old spade digging to find the remains of his Uncle Billy. After a bout of frustration and doubt, he decides to enlist the help of a serial killer convicted of killing several children in the area. This incredibly believable novel is extremely engaging. Bauer's character of the child predator is unsettling in the sense that I could not stop thinking how real her portrayal of his thoughts, scheming and his way of life played out. It was as if she were in his head typing out his exact thoughts. Arnold Avery, the pedophile serial killer is callous and calculating and deeply disturbed. Steven Lamb is a gentle, caring young boy and all his wants is to heal his family. Is he any match for the serial killer that killed his uncle? This was an adrenaline pumping read, especially toward the end, it really had me hooked from start to finish- a one sitting read! I definitely plan on reading Belinda Bauer's next novel. I highly recommend this novel.

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer is a beautifully written story of a boy and his grandmother. Twelve-year-old Steven Lamb lives in poverty with his mother, grandmother (his nan) and brother in a village on Exmoor. This is not a happy little family, and Steven is certain that the blame for all of this lies in the kidnapping and murder of his uncle when Billy Peters was eleven years old by a serial child molester. Billy's body was never found and Steven knows that if he can bring closure to his nan by finding her son's body, everything in his family will change. Steven spends all of his spare time digging along Exmoor trying to find his uncle's body. Then one day a teacher mentions that he is good at writing letters, and he seizes on the idea that if he writes a good enough letter to his uncle's killer, Arnold Avery, he can get the man to divulge where the boy's body is buried. Steven writes the letter to the imprisoned Avery, and when Avery realizes that his correspondent is a little boy, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues. Bauer's depiction of Steven as a boy desperately yearning for a family is touching. Steven is not precocious or gifted or witty or cute or athletic, but is an ordinary boy who is focused on one thing--finding his uncle's body. His mom and nan are so involved in their own miseries that they are barely aware of him as anything other than a body that has to be fed and clothed. They are not malicious or evil; they are just stuck in malaise and cannot see beyond their own pain. They do their duty by him, but little more. This was a hard book to put down, especially the last few chapters. I enjoyed it very much and I look forward to future books by Belinda Bauer.

I am waiting impatiently for Belinda Bauer's next novel. It is hard to believe that "Black Lands" is her first. Her writing is on a par with experienced best-selling authors. Ms. Bauer's detailed description of the setting allows the reader to feel the dreariness and hopelessness of the main characters' lives. "The street was narrow and winding and, in summer, tourists smiled at the seaside-painted terraces with their doors opening right onto the pavement and their quaint shutters. But the rain made the yellow and pink and sky-blue houses a faint reminder of sunshine, and a refuge only for those too young, too old, or too poor to leave." She allows us inside the minds of both the young boy and the criminal. One can actually feel what the characters are feeling. Ma. Bauer's vivid descriptions allowed me to travel to England in my mind and I heard the characters speaking with a British accent. The setting and characters alone do not a novel make. The story line of "Black Lands" is very intriguing and kept me totally absorbed. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good thriller and everything British. Even my non-Anglophile friends are lined up to borrow it.

Lonely, nerdy Steven Lamb has one goal in life: finding his murdered Uncle Billy's remains. When random digging on a British moor turns up nothing, the pre-teen has a brainstorm. When Arnold Avery, England's worst serial killer since Ian Brady, receives cryptic letters from SL asking about his exploits, he rediscovers what it feels like to hold life and death in his hands. It isn't long before Longmoor prison is too small for this ambitious killer. "Blacklands" is not a crime novel. Belinda Bauer's debut is a literary investigation into the minds of a crime-obsessed boy and the killer whose shadow lingers over a grieving family. Steven struggles to find who he is and to stand up for himself in cruel, poverty-ridden Southwest England. Avery wants to recapture the glory of his heady psychopathology, and no one but himself is real enough to matter. This novel is intensely English. Casual references to Maltesers, Steven Gerrard, and Milk Tray had even this long-term Anglophile rushing to Google. Thus, getting through this book may require an effort from a more committedly American audience. But the investment of time and strength will be worth it when the boy's and the killer's shared monstrosities come to life in an explosion of literary weight. Bauer's voices are uncanny. Her insights into the process by which an ordinary person becomes a killer are chilling. And her views on a family caught in the long shadow of violence can harrow the soul. She writes in an omniscient tone that writers haven't much used in the last forty years, so her storytelling can feel somewhat old-fashioned even when it's very contemporary. But the tension and the emotional mass never stop ascending until the brutal climax. For literary fiction fans and crime devotees alike, this novel has the potential to take readers into a dark place and emerge cathartically purged. Bauer's debut is blood-curdlingly realistic while never losing an edge of ironic humor. And its all-too-human characters have the power of a punch in the gut. This is an author, and a novel, not to be missed.