Blacklands [Hardcover]

Belinda Bauer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO, Billy Peters disappeared. Everyone in town believes Billy was murdered—after all, serial killer Arnold Avery later admitted killing six other children and burying them on the same desolate moor that surrounds their small English village. Only Billy’s mother is convinced he is alive. She still stands lonely guard at the front window of her home, waiting for her son to return, while her remaining family fragments around her.

But her twelve-year-old grandson Steven is determined to heal the cracks that gape between his nan, his mother, his brother, and himself. Steven desperately wants to bring his family closure, and if that means personally finding his uncle’s corpse, he’ll do it.

Spending his spare time digging holes all over the moor in the hope of turning up a body is a long shot, but at least it gives his life purpose.

Then at school, when the lesson turns to letter writing, Steven has a flash of inspiration . . . Careful to hide his identity, he secretly pens a letter to Avery in jail asking for help in finding the body of "W.P."—William "Billy" Peters.

So begins a dangerous cat-and-mouse game.

Just as Steven tries to use Avery to pinpoint the gravesite, so Avery misdirects and teases his mysterious correspondent in order to relive his heinous crimes. And when Avery finally realizes that the letters he’s receiving are from a twelve-year-old boy, suddenly his life has purpose too.

Although his is far more dangerous . . .

Blacklands is a taut and chillingly brilliant debut that signals the arrival of a bright new voice in psychological suspense.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Bauer's solid debut focuses on Steven Lamb, an unhappy 12-year-old boy who lives with his mother, grandmother, and five-year-old brother in Shipcolt, Somerset. Steven's grandmother is still haunted by the disappearance and suspected murder of her 11-year-old son, Billy, 19 years earlier. The authorities assume Billy was killed by pedophile Arnold Avery, who was convicted of six counts of murder and is serving a life sentence in Longmoor prison. Determined to find Billy's remains, Steven has been methodically digging up the moor near his house. Frustrated by his lack of progress, he writes a letter to Avery asking for information, and so begins a cat-and-mouse game that will have dire consequences. Bauer creates believable tension within the Lamb household as her characters shoulder enormous psychological burdens, though a somewhat far-fetched climax dilutes the quiet power of the preceding story. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Bauer, whose intent was to write a “small story about a boy and his grandmother,” didn’t quite succeed. Yes, there’s a grandmother and her 12-year-old grandson, but Bauer’s debut is hardly a “small” (read simple and uncomplicated) story. It’s an unsettling novel, with the sort of devastating emotional content that makes it both difficult to read and difficult to forget. Steven Lamb wants nothing more than to find the body of his uncle, taken as young boy (and presumably murdered) by pedophile Arnold Avery, who is now in prison. It’s Steven’s desperate wish that by finding the body, he’ll heal his dysfunctional family and repair his grandmother’s broken heart. Digging holes in the nearby moor (the blacklands), where many of Avery’s victims were found, has revealed nothing, leaving the pedophile himself as Steven’s only hope for ending his family’s pain. Thus begins a carefully orchestrated mail correspondence—just a few words here and there—passed between the two in letters that the recipients must puzzle out. Unfortunately for Steven, Avery quickly gains control of the conversation, which allows him to live in glorious memory of his killings. If the turn of events isn’t totally unexpected, it’s a riveting journey nonetheless, with Bauer remaining fully invested in her troubled characters: one a clever, vicious manipulator; the other an unappreciated, bullied 12-year-old, desperate for love. --Stephanie Zvirin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439149445
• ISBN-13: 978-1439149447
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #942,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

BELINDA BAUER grew up in England and South Africa. She has worked as a journalist and screenwriter, and her script THE LOCKER ROOM earned her the Carl Foreman/Bafta Award for Young British Screenwriters, an award that was presented to her by Sidney Poitier. She was a runner-up in the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition for "Mysterious Ways," about a girl stranded on a desert island with 30,000 Bibles. Belinda Bauer now lives in Wales. BLACKLANDS is her first novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Believe It's a First Novel, December 3, 2009

By 

Gramma Sally (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Blacklands (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very different serial killer story, December 14, 2009

By 

switterbug (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blacklands (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

On the barren, bracken moors of Exmoor, outside of the rural town of Shipcott, serial killer and pedophile Arnold Avery has disposed of children's bodies. He has been serving a life sentence for his heinous crimes, but the discovery of his victims' remains are not complete. One child, eleven year-old Billy Peters, has been missing for nineteen years; the location of his grave remains a mystery. Billy's mother still peers stonily out of the window of her house, as if waiting for him to return. Billy's sister, Lettie, suffers from the fallout of her mother's remoteness and lack off affection. Her life has been hollowed out since Billy's disappearance. Now with two young sons of her own, Lettie has been through handfuls of failed relationships with men. She behaves with a bitter resentment towards her oldest son, twelve year-old Steven. The future appears gloomy and doomed to the past.

This story is about Steven's attempt to heal his broken family. He is a precocious and sensitive boy with particularly astute critical thinking skills. Lonely and frequently bullied by the neighborhood kids, he has one friend, and even that alliance is not too promising. He ventures with his spade and his sense of purpose off to the moors to dig. He digs daily and ferociously, determined to find his uncle's grave and bury the past sorrows. He wants his Nan to stop waiting for the impossible and for his Mum to quit grieving. When no evidence turns up, he writes a letter to Avery in prison to ask where his uncle is buried. Avery admires the pluck of this painfully brief letter and writes a cryptic letter back, even though he doesn't know whom the missive is from--man, woman, or child. The tension of the story progresses with the letters, and a tender, taut tale unfolds with remarkable restraint and depth.

This is not your typical serial killer story. Gratuitous violence is supplanted by a quiet desperation, which is more effective in revealing the insidious horror and rippling ramifications of Avery's atrocities. The narrative is largely advanced through psychologically interior scenes and internal reflection, and the details are exhumed through Steven's crusade for redemption.

This pacing is unhurried. The action is gradual, and at times is too slow and plodding. Additionally, I thought that Steven's acuity of thought and cleverness a bit too sophisticated and believable for his age and experience. However, these were minor blemishes in an otherwise original and atmospheric story.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncanny Voice, Harrowing Soul, November 27, 2009

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blacklands (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

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.