‘The Skeleton Army’ by Alis Hawkins

Published by Canelo,
4 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80436714-8 (HB)

I first encountered Alis Hawkins in her native west Wales – not literally, of course, but in fiction through her Teifi Valley Coroner series. It’s a landscape which probably hasn’t changed much since the 19^th century when those books are set – unlike Oxford, the background for her new series featuring college don Basil Rice and the militantly aspiring academic Non Vaughan, who supplements her small income by writing for the local paper.

The Skeleton Army is the second in that series, and it takes place at a time when women were very much second-class citizens in the academic world, and the Salvation Army was beginning its onslaught against the depths ordinary citizens descend to because of poverty. But in late 19^th century Oxford the Salvationists aren’t exactly popular, and they find fierce opposition in the form of the Skeleton Army of the title, who delight in disrupting and heckling their meetings and parades and often resort to outright violence.

Basil and Non become involved when Ernie Ayott, a new recruit to the Salvationists, meets a suspicious end. There is strong evidence that Ernie was murdered by the Skeletons, and when the editor of Non’s newspaper refuses to allow her to say so in print, the doughty pair set out to prove it beyond all doubt. Then more people die, and their investigation becomes more complex and dangerous.  

The result is a knotty mystery set against a hectic and colourful period of Oxford’s history. Basil has his own issues; convention and the law force him to hide his sexual orientation, and his former lover won’t leave him alone. Non is torn between her ambition to be a writer of note and her desire to support the cause of women in academia. Both are engaging characters, the kind who could walk off the page into everyday life, as are numerous others including Non’s ebullient would-be suitor Tarley Askew, Captain Lizzie Lyall of the Salvationists, and Ernie’s feisty daughter Lucy – and that’s just the good guys. 

A sharp contrast is drawn between the meagre existence eked out in the slums, and Non’s cosy lodgings and Basil’s comfortable college life. There’s a richly drawn sense of place throughout the novel, from the gloomy one-room houses and grubby pubs of St Thomas’s along the crowded and often dirty streets to the elegant quarters of the Master of Balliol College.     

It’s a whole different world from the open spaces and fresh air of west Wales, but every bit as engrossing. I look forward to meeting Non and Basil again soon and letting myself be drawn into their next enterprise
------
Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Alis Hawkins is Welsh by birth, a graduate of Oxford University, and author of the Teifi Valley Coroner series, set in her native west Wales. She is a founder member of Welsh writers' collective Crime Cymru and chair of Wales's only crime fiction festival, Gwyl Crime Cymru. She lives in the Forest of Dean, and regularly visits both west Wales and Oxford.

 

https://alishawkins.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.