I first came across Blacklands by Belinda Bauer when I read a review of the novel on my friend Nikki-Ann’s blog (you can find her review here). She raved about it, so I felt I had to read it. Blacklands is also one of the crime novels on the list of the Great Transworld Crime Caper.
Blacklands tells the story of Steven Lamb, a twelve-year-old boy whose uncle Billy Peters was murdered by a pervert when he was only eleven. The murder has had a strong impact on the family, which has become somewhat dysfunctional since the event. Steven’s grandmother (Billy’s mother) never got over losing her son and pays little attention to Steven. To get a little bit of his grandmother’s love that he is yearning for, Steven decides to find his uncle’s body. To do this he starts writing to his uncle’s murderer, who sits in a jail nearby. Starts a dangerous game of cat and mouse between Steven and Billy’s murderer, which turns deadly when the pervert escapes from prison and looks for Steven with more than just a chat in mind.
Bauer mentions that when she started writing her book, she didn’t have a crime novel in mind. Instead, what she wanted to write about was the story of a boy and his grandmother. Well, she certainly succeeded in that regard. The relationship between Steven and his grandma is fantastically portrayed and you find yourself suffering in silence in Steven’s shoes. In fact, the relationship triangles in the whole family are wonderfully described, with Steven’s younger brother Davey, his mother Lettie, and Lettie’s boyfriend Uncle Jude all playing a big role. However, with the murderer’s entrance, the story takes on a more sinister turn. Bauer has made smart use of the novel’s environment. The eerie atmosphere of the Moors plays such a large role in the book that the landscape almost becomes a character with its own set of rules and even feelings. This is a great, psychological story. I find it hard to put it into a specific genre, and that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned: it is as much as a coming-of-age story than a crime novel or a story about grieving. I read it in two days and I am looking forward to Bauer’s next book, Darkside.
