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Mace & Brindle #1
Turning Blue
The depths of winter in the isolated Yorkshire Dales and a teenage girl is missing.
At a derelict farm high up on a hillside Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets. Nobody knows the bleak moors better than him, or their hiding places.
Obsessive, taciturn and solitary, detective Jim Brindle is relentless in pursuing justice. But he is not alone in his growing preoccupation with the case. Local journalist Roddy Mace has moved north from London to build a new life.
As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity and fixture of the nation's Saturday night TV. 'Lovely Larry' Lister has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.
A tour de force in plotting and atmosphere, Turning Blue is a terrifying and gripping tale of hidden lives, and hidden deaths.
At a derelict farm high up on a hillside Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets. Nobody knows the bleak moors better than him, or their hiding places.
Obsessive, taciturn and solitary, detective Jim Brindle is relentless in pursuing justice. But he is not alone in his growing preoccupation with the case. Local journalist Roddy Mace has moved north from London to build a new life.
As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity and fixture of the nation's Saturday night TV. 'Lovely Larry' Lister has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.
A tour de force in plotting and atmosphere, Turning Blue is a terrifying and gripping tale of hidden lives, and hidden deaths.
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First published January 1, 2016
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About the author
Benjamin Myers
35 books1,202 followersBenjamin Myers was born in Durham, UK, in 1976.
He is an award-winning author and journalist whose recent novel Cuddy (2023) won the Goldsmiths Prize.
His first short story collection, Male Tears, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
His novel The Offing was published by Bloomsbury in 2019 and is a best-seller in Germany. It was serialised by Radio 4's Book At Bedtime and Radio 2 Book club choice. It is being developed for stage and has been optioned for film.
The non-fiction book Under The Rock, was shortlisted for The Portico Prize For Literature in 2020.
Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. It has been published in the US by Third Man Books and in 2023 was adapted by director Shane Meadows for the BBC/A24.
The Gallows Pole was re-issued by Bloomsbury, alongside previous titles Beastings and Pig Iron.
Several of Myers' novels have been released as audiobooks, read by actor Ralph Ineson.
Turning Blue (2016) was described as a "folk crime" novel, and praised by writers including Val McDermid. A sequel These Darkening Days followed in 2017.
His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature, was the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award and longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015. Widely acclaimed, it featured on several end of year lists, and was chosen by Robert Macfarlane in The Big Issue as one of his books of 2014.
Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller and chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year.
Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies.
As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.
He currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.
He is an award-winning author and journalist whose recent novel Cuddy (2023) won the Goldsmiths Prize.
His first short story collection, Male Tears, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
His novel The Offing was published by Bloomsbury in 2019 and is a best-seller in Germany. It was serialised by Radio 4's Book At Bedtime and Radio 2 Book club choice. It is being developed for stage and has been optioned for film.
The non-fiction book Under The Rock, was shortlisted for The Portico Prize For Literature in 2020.
Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. It has been published in the US by Third Man Books and in 2023 was adapted by director Shane Meadows for the BBC/A24.
The Gallows Pole was re-issued by Bloomsbury, alongside previous titles Beastings and Pig Iron.
Several of Myers' novels have been released as audiobooks, read by actor Ralph Ineson.
Turning Blue (2016) was described as a "folk crime" novel, and praised by writers including Val McDermid. A sequel These Darkening Days followed in 2017.
His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature, was the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award and longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015. Widely acclaimed, it featured on several end of year lists, and was chosen by Robert Macfarlane in The Big Issue as one of his books of 2014.
Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller and chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year.
Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies.
As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.
He currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
April 4, 2017
The good Benjamin and the bad Myers have their hands round each other’s throats here.
GOOD BENJAMIN
There are lovely thrilling passages all about the harsh beautiful world of Yorkshire in the winter.
He pictures the reservoir rising rushing surging gushing. Underwater underground. Unseen. Through tunnels and runnels and channels and fissures. Running and spurting and flowing and flushing. Down the hidden concrete conduits through the earth and out the storm-drain exit points. He sees streams swelling into rivers that flow down the flanks and into the valley. Down the dale.
BAD MYERS
There is really horrid cliché dialogue
A guy is confessing to a murder to a bunch of sleazy guys:
Will you tell the authorities?
The man in the cap starts laughing at him… Son, we are the authorities.
Cue : audience groaning & saying to each other ironically whoah, never saw that coming.
GOOD BENJAMIN
There is the heart, the kernel, the throbbing ventricle of what could have been one of the great English crime novels in these pages.
BAD MYERS
But it’s rushed through and tossed away, as if Bad Myers did not know what he had here.
GOOD BENJAMIN
He grabs hold of the recent Jimmy Savile scandal, in which one of Britain’s most beloved showbiz entertainers turned out to be a child rapist, sexual abuser and necrophile during a 40 years career and was only discovered to be so phenomenally depraved after he was safely dead. You see, Sir James Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG raised millions for charity and was a friend of the royal family as well as being a serial sex abuser of his many pre-teen and teenage fans. It was a hell of a story and here we have a pretty good fictionalised version of it, and I think that fiction is the only place such a horror story can be fully explored. To do the whole thing justice this book needed to be twice the length.
BAD MYERS
He combines the Savile story with a more standard plot involving a cabal of corrupt businessmen and coppers who like to torture girls to death and film the proceedings. Then all of this is used as the background to the sorry tale of Steven Rutter, the barely literate pig farmer who is the almost-equivalent of Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant creation Lester Ballard in my favorite CM novel Child of God (read it!!). It’s too much for one medium sized novel.
GOOD BENJAMIN
He infuses a near-prose poetry into almost every description. Have I already said that? Okay, I’m running out of things to say about Good Benjamin.
BAD MYERS
He has this really bad bromance thing going between the clichéd uncorruptible loner cop and the clichéd drunk wannabe-a-real-writer journalist which takes up way way way too much time.
***
So maybe this was like listening to Neil Young, his lyrics are stupid and incoherent and his voice is whiney and not good but ooo that guitar solo, don’t turn it off.
GOOD BENJAMIN
There are lovely thrilling passages all about the harsh beautiful world of Yorkshire in the winter.
He pictures the reservoir rising rushing surging gushing. Underwater underground. Unseen. Through tunnels and runnels and channels and fissures. Running and spurting and flowing and flushing. Down the hidden concrete conduits through the earth and out the storm-drain exit points. He sees streams swelling into rivers that flow down the flanks and into the valley. Down the dale.
BAD MYERS
There is really horrid cliché dialogue
A guy is confessing to a murder to a bunch of sleazy guys:
Will you tell the authorities?
The man in the cap starts laughing at him… Son, we are the authorities.
Cue : audience groaning & saying to each other ironically whoah, never saw that coming.
GOOD BENJAMIN
There is the heart, the kernel, the throbbing ventricle of what could have been one of the great English crime novels in these pages.
BAD MYERS
But it’s rushed through and tossed away, as if Bad Myers did not know what he had here.
GOOD BENJAMIN
He grabs hold of the recent Jimmy Savile scandal, in which one of Britain’s most beloved showbiz entertainers turned out to be a child rapist, sexual abuser and necrophile during a 40 years career and was only discovered to be so phenomenally depraved after he was safely dead. You see, Sir James Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG raised millions for charity and was a friend of the royal family as well as being a serial sex abuser of his many pre-teen and teenage fans. It was a hell of a story and here we have a pretty good fictionalised version of it, and I think that fiction is the only place such a horror story can be fully explored. To do the whole thing justice this book needed to be twice the length.
BAD MYERS
He combines the Savile story with a more standard plot involving a cabal of corrupt businessmen and coppers who like to torture girls to death and film the proceedings. Then all of this is used as the background to the sorry tale of Steven Rutter, the barely literate pig farmer who is the almost-equivalent of Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant creation Lester Ballard in my favorite CM novel Child of God (read it!!). It’s too much for one medium sized novel.
GOOD BENJAMIN
He infuses a near-prose poetry into almost every description. Have I already said that? Okay, I’m running out of things to say about Good Benjamin.
BAD MYERS
He has this really bad bromance thing going between the clichéd uncorruptible loner cop and the clichéd drunk wannabe-a-real-writer journalist which takes up way way way too much time.
***
So maybe this was like listening to Neil Young, his lyrics are stupid and incoherent and his voice is whiney and not good but ooo that guitar solo, don’t turn it off.
February 28, 2020
Hum - "noir" is something of an understatement here! This is very (at times very very) unpleasant AND the author doesn't use much in the way of punctuation...
However assuming you can get over that this is a very good read. It is past adult and going through horror at times. However the characters, scenes and the like are very good. The storyline does feel a bit created and extreme I guess. But the excellent writing really does make up for any perceived failings.
I read The Offing a while back which I simply loved. This feels like a massive contrast and in some ways is. But the quality of the writing is very similar. If you like your north country, perverted noir absolutely pitch black (and some of the characters a long way past nasty) this should be of interest. It won't be the last book I read by this author - that is certain.
However assuming you can get over that this is a very good read. It is past adult and going through horror at times. However the characters, scenes and the like are very good. The storyline does feel a bit created and extreme I guess. But the excellent writing really does make up for any perceived failings.
I read The Offing a while back which I simply loved. This feels like a massive contrast and in some ways is. But the quality of the writing is very similar. If you like your north country, perverted noir absolutely pitch black (and some of the characters a long way past nasty) this should be of interest. It won't be the last book I read by this author - that is certain.
September 12, 2017
Wasn't sure of this book at first as it clearly disliked commas! But the descriptions made me feel sick and the story and characters blew me away! So glad I picked this up just because blue is my nickname. Want to read more by this author x
January 3, 2024
Dark very dark, pitch black in fact with nary a stray ray of light.
October 4, 2016
4.5. Seriously good but not for the faint-hearted. If you don't want to read about the depths of human depravity in gory detail, avoid at all costs. Also, if you prefer speech to be appropriately punctuated then you should probably avoid. I actually really enjoyed the writing style and the occasional flash of humour amongst all the bleak. This book could take on The Road for the title of Bleakiest of the Bleak. I will go scrub the inside of my brain with bleach now.
August 4, 2016
More brutality and evocative brilliance from Benjamin Myers. Fans of "Pig Iron" and "Beastings" will be pleased to know: Myers is still at the absolute top of his game.
April 15, 2023
This work that mines the unfathomable darkness and the immeasurable depravity lurking in human souls was a mixed bag. Where Benjamin Myers excels is in sketching the brooding hues of the landscape - Yorkshire Dales - where the action takes place. Sample these opening lines: THE BLACK WATER shot through with silver. Scraps of the moon on the surface like a shoal of fish floating belly up. The slow rock and tip and the slap of the water on the side of the boat. But this demeanor of serenity, rudely and often crudely, transitions to scenes of violence and abuse that are certainly not for the faint hearted and those with a weak stomach. Even the description of the landscape slowly and subtly takes on an unsettling tone as we move forward in the story: The incline leading down to it (a gorge) is covered in untouched snow before dropping away to a vast hole in the moor edge. A chunk bitten from the spine of the valley. There is a dose of beauty and an overdose of vileness in this first instalment of a series.
A young girl goes missing after taking her dog for a walk in the fields. The case lands up in the desk of DS James Brindle who is a member of the Cold Storage Unit, an emerging department at the centre of the unseen grid of British policing information. DS Brindle is in the company of a strange lot: Stone-turners and stat men. Dirt-diggers. The emotionally stunted. The obsessives. The spectrum-dwellers. The pragmatists. The scientists of crime with the brilliant minds. Those who fail at everything in life except detective work. Brindle is soon joined in solving the mystery of the missing girl by a local journalist harboring an ambition to be a writer, Roddy Mace (hence, Mace & Brindle). Embellishing the main plot are some subplots centering around police corruption, pedophilia rings and violent pornography, including a character that closely resembles Jimmy Savile.
There is no mystery in this tale as the crime and the perpetrator are revealed quite early on. The narrative is more about the backstory of the perpetrator, sketches that are sickeningly horrifying, and the method behind Brindle's cracking of the case (of course, aided by timely and helpful Mace). This is a linear and methodical police procedural: Cold Storage detectives retrace the steps from death back into life. They walk backwards from tragedy through the strange lives of these people. They start at the final breath and end at their birth and somewhere along the way they find out where it all went wrong. There are no hair raising aha! moments.
There is no doubt about Benjamin Myers writing skills. The nightmares he conjures up so graphically are something you don't want to wake up from. And he brings in a poetic lyricism while describing the landscapes. Where the narration flounders is in the characterization of the two protagonists (if one may describe Brindle and Mace). Brindle comes out as an obsessive compulsive automaton and Mace, a typical caricature of a journalist looking for that big story. It would be interesting to see how these two characters are going to power the series forward.
A trigger warning for those planning to read this: If you are 'grammatically obsessed', please note that Mr. Myers has cruelly done away with commas. Now, who would solve this shocking 'comma-cide'?
A young girl goes missing after taking her dog for a walk in the fields. The case lands up in the desk of DS James Brindle who is a member of the Cold Storage Unit, an emerging department at the centre of the unseen grid of British policing information. DS Brindle is in the company of a strange lot: Stone-turners and stat men. Dirt-diggers. The emotionally stunted. The obsessives. The spectrum-dwellers. The pragmatists. The scientists of crime with the brilliant minds. Those who fail at everything in life except detective work. Brindle is soon joined in solving the mystery of the missing girl by a local journalist harboring an ambition to be a writer, Roddy Mace (hence, Mace & Brindle). Embellishing the main plot are some subplots centering around police corruption, pedophilia rings and violent pornography, including a character that closely resembles Jimmy Savile.
There is no mystery in this tale as the crime and the perpetrator are revealed quite early on. The narrative is more about the backstory of the perpetrator, sketches that are sickeningly horrifying, and the method behind Brindle's cracking of the case (of course, aided by timely and helpful Mace). This is a linear and methodical police procedural: Cold Storage detectives retrace the steps from death back into life. They walk backwards from tragedy through the strange lives of these people. They start at the final breath and end at their birth and somewhere along the way they find out where it all went wrong. There are no hair raising aha! moments.
There is no doubt about Benjamin Myers writing skills. The nightmares he conjures up so graphically are something you don't want to wake up from. And he brings in a poetic lyricism while describing the landscapes. Where the narration flounders is in the characterization of the two protagonists (if one may describe Brindle and Mace). Brindle comes out as an obsessive compulsive automaton and Mace, a typical caricature of a journalist looking for that big story. It would be interesting to see how these two characters are going to power the series forward.
A trigger warning for those planning to read this: If you are 'grammatically obsessed', please note that Mr. Myers has cruelly done away with commas. Now, who would solve this shocking 'comma-cide'?
October 1, 2016
I bought this deliciously dark and disturbing read blind, and what a revelation Benjamin Myers‘ Turning Blue turned out to be. A glorious mash up of the staccato darkness of David Peace, fused with Ross Raisin, this book was not only utterly original, but infused with a beautifully realised balance of naturalistic imagery, and a totally compelling tale of sordid murder in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Drawing on the theme of the infamous Yew Tree investigations, Myers has conjured up a cast of emotionally damaged characters across the spectrum, with blood chilling moments of revelation, that will haunt your dreams. His use of the brooding bleakness of his Dales’ setting works perfectly in tandem with the very real and flawed characters that he presents to us, shifting our empathy back and forth with each twist and turn in his perfectly plotted drama. Although, I felt that the plot was just a little too extended towards the final third of the plot, at odds with the brevity and sharpness of his writing, I would still highly recommend this to the more stout hearted amongst you. I felt grubby after reading it, but in a wickedly enjoyable way. Excellent.
May 30, 2024
Slowly getting through most of Myers' books and every single one has been sublime. One of my favourite writers.
Turning Blue is another. A grim (very grim) crime novel set in a nameless Hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales as a police detective moves in on a group of depraved countrymen.
I don't know of many (if any) other writers that capture the landscape of the North of England with such quality. The beautiful and bucolic side and all of its ugliness and brutality - not just in terms of the terrain and history, but its inhabitants, particularly those with a few screws loose.
Much in the same way as Male Tears, Beastings, Gallows Pole and the more recent The Perfect Golden Circle, the characters in Turning Blue are depraved, erratic, odd and otherworldly - in this case Steven Rutter, who is more akin to the pigs he feeds (and starves) on his farm than a human being, although the pigs probably possess more moral compass and decency.
Yet I still found myself feeling a degree of sorrow for Rutter (a man who takes part in atrocities ranging from rape, incest, necrophilia all rather effortlessly) as the novel progressed and his sanity gradually erodes.
Couldn't put this down. Another ace macabre read from Myers. Definitely recommend.
Turning Blue is another. A grim (very grim) crime novel set in a nameless Hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales as a police detective moves in on a group of depraved countrymen.
I don't know of many (if any) other writers that capture the landscape of the North of England with such quality. The beautiful and bucolic side and all of its ugliness and brutality - not just in terms of the terrain and history, but its inhabitants, particularly those with a few screws loose.
Much in the same way as Male Tears, Beastings, Gallows Pole and the more recent The Perfect Golden Circle, the characters in Turning Blue are depraved, erratic, odd and otherworldly - in this case Steven Rutter, who is more akin to the pigs he feeds (and starves) on his farm than a human being, although the pigs probably possess more moral compass and decency.
Yet I still found myself feeling a degree of sorrow for Rutter (a man who takes part in atrocities ranging from rape, incest, necrophilia all rather effortlessly) as the novel progressed and his sanity gradually erodes.
Couldn't put this down. Another ace macabre read from Myers. Definitely recommend.
June 30, 2025
This was very stylish (and the style was some horrible mix of David Peace's 'Red Riding' series, Peter Robinson's settings turned black/white/blue, and 'The Wicker Man'... self-acknowledgingly so in this latter case) but alas it was ultimately unsatisfying. I thought there was a bit too much focus on the dark and visceral nature of the crimes within, at the expense of a completely coherent narrative. A little too much of it seemed designed to shock the reader as opposed to actually keep them involved, and in the end I found it preferable to slightly scoot through the final fifty pages to 'get it over with'. This I felt was a shame, as I could understand the critical acclaim given to the book - however much I have managed to read more brutal and gory crime stories in the past, many of these had more substance than this did. I will try and find something pleasant and enjoyable to read next.
September 22, 2018
Brutal and brilliant, a combination of crime, folklore and horror (in the old, gothic sense) that had me twisted into a knot on the sofa for hours. I liked the way that Myers played with genre tropes - the lone wolf, the drunk journalist and their bromance; corrupt coppers; close knit communities - and layered them up with strata of contemporary and timeless forms of darkness and depravity. The cruelty of the landscape and the cruelty of man, and the body of a teenage girl caught in the teeth of both.
That said. Here is another Ben Myers book short of women, in which the only notable female character is a corpse. As with The Gallows Pole it makes some sense in context, but nevertheless leaves me on the edge of uncomfortable.
That said. Here is another Ben Myers book short of women, in which the only notable female character is a corpse. As with The Gallows Pole it makes some sense in context, but nevertheless leaves me on the edge of uncomfortable.
October 4, 2016
Brutal, depraved, harrowing... and yet, starkly beautiful... Mr. Myers is a fantastic stylist, his prose is sublime, and that carried this squirming reader through.
November 26, 2018
This is the first of Myers’s crime novels in his Brindle and May series, which I’ve read in the wrong order, These Darkening Days first. Similarly to that, this is a perfectly good story set in the Yorkshire Dales but nothing special. The strengths are in the descriptions of his characters, particularly the bad guys, and the backdrop of the Dales. As with all of his other books, Myers uses the setting incredibly well, in this case to represent the gloom of the village community following the disappearance of a young girl.
Subsequently Myers went on to write his two historical novels, Beastings and The Gallows Pole which elevated him as an upcoming author of Hugh potential. Hopefully it is in this genre that he will write next.
Subsequently Myers went on to write his two historical novels, Beastings and The Gallows Pole which elevated him as an upcoming author of Hugh potential. Hopefully it is in this genre that he will write next.
August 11, 2016
Brutal Brilliance
Myers has done it again. TURNING BLUE is an intoxicating and exhilarating story, set against the bleak North Yorkshire landscape.
Fans of Myers' previous work will be again swept away by the beauty of his poetic prose, and there are some familiar references ('green cathedral' anyone?).
Characters are given more depth than those in BEASTINGS, making this book less stark, but the brutality and depravity is again core to the plot.
It's never an easy ride with Myers and his books aren't for the faint-hearted. For me, he's the best writer of his generation; the brutal brilliance of Bret Easton Ellis written with a North of England soul.
Sublime.
Myers has done it again. TURNING BLUE is an intoxicating and exhilarating story, set against the bleak North Yorkshire landscape.
Fans of Myers' previous work will be again swept away by the beauty of his poetic prose, and there are some familiar references ('green cathedral' anyone?).
Characters are given more depth than those in BEASTINGS, making this book less stark, but the brutality and depravity is again core to the plot.
It's never an easy ride with Myers and his books aren't for the faint-hearted. For me, he's the best writer of his generation; the brutal brilliance of Bret Easton Ellis written with a North of England soul.
Sublime.
August 27, 2016
TURNING BLUE Myers new masterpiece does not disappoint. You walk the rugged landscape of the Yorkshire Dales, bitten by the chill, feel the sun burning your skin; the putrid smell lingers too long about your nostrils. Ben Myers has a style of writing that stays with you…attacks the senses, lingers in amongst your memories and leaves you wanting more.
September 29, 2017
Poetic violence
I got this book as a freebie and it has held me riveted. It is not an easy read, full of violence and filth but it is so beautifully written. It is like looking at a painting - firstly you see the subject matter, then the background, then you notice the individual brush-strokes. Almost a masterpiece.
I got this book as a freebie and it has held me riveted. It is not an easy read, full of violence and filth but it is so beautifully written. It is like looking at a painting - firstly you see the subject matter, then the background, then you notice the individual brush-strokes. Almost a masterpiece.
May 28, 2017
Brilliant book - so dark and terrifying. I will never forget the Pigman.
September 19, 2018
In Ch 2 Ben Myers manages an absolute tour de force is describing a run-down Dales farm: “The barns are missing panels and reduced to rotten skeletons. A tractor sits slumped without a windscreen and a front wheel leaning to one side like an old man who has keeled over.” We are not in picture-book Yorkshire here, but in a bloody and corrupt remote landscape of old jealousies and historic abuse. This is not an easy read, even in its lighter moments - the uncomfortable dance between obsessive detective and ambitious reporter is a lighter vein - but a terrible exploration of what the author describes as “a dark and chaotic place that is ruled by disorder and desire and impulse.”
Meticulous in its most horrific descriptions of seedy cinemas and callous violence, this is a powerful and visceral book: I had to read to the end - and will return to the sequel “These Darkening Days” at some point. But, Jesus, not yet.
Meticulous in its most horrific descriptions of seedy cinemas and callous violence, this is a powerful and visceral book: I had to read to the end - and will return to the sequel “These Darkening Days” at some point. But, Jesus, not yet.
December 12, 2022
Myers, an author from the north of England, is a masterful prose writer. This is a sordid story of secrets of murders, and sexual exploitation. One of the characters, a bad guy, is based on a notorious sexual predator, a TV personality, whose crimes went undetected for years. It was hard to read because of the extreme violence towards young women. I continued reading and finished because the characters pursuing the murder(s) were interesting characters. I may read more of Myers as long as I can determine ahead of time that violence against women isn't a theme in the book.
February 21, 2024
I loved the storyline and couldn’t get away from the book. Although you knew from the beginning who the murder was it was really interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2016
I was already a big fan of Ben Myers’ previous two novels, Pig Iron and Beastings, dark and often violent engagements with the British landscape, an anti-pastoral from the north of England happy to engage with bleak subject matter and marginalised communities.
Turning Blue intrigued me as this novel is, technically, a foray into crime fiction. Or, at least, one of the main characters is a policeman. Though I wouldn’t say I am fan of the crime genre (and certainly not of policemen), the detective character is a peculiarly useful one in fiction – few other character-types in our society have access to all levels of the social strata, whilst standing outside of all of them. Both underclass and ruling elite can be accessed by the literary detective. There are excellent examples of the detective story being bent into different shapes in speculative fiction – think The City and the City, Finch, Osama, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union – but this is one of the first examples I have come across of a literary rural crime novel (though I'm sure there are more out there).
Set in and around an isolated Hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales, Turning Blue is gorgeously written but oppressively dark. It’s not a book for the faint hearted, diving headfirst into a world exposed partly by Operation Yewtree – the book contains a clear analogue/composite of Savile and Stuart Hall – a world of grubby porn cinemas, murder and abuses of power. It’s deeply uncomfortable, essential reading, examining something very rotten in British society. I loved it, though love is probably the wrong word here...
Turning Blue intrigued me as this novel is, technically, a foray into crime fiction. Or, at least, one of the main characters is a policeman. Though I wouldn’t say I am fan of the crime genre (and certainly not of policemen), the detective character is a peculiarly useful one in fiction – few other character-types in our society have access to all levels of the social strata, whilst standing outside of all of them. Both underclass and ruling elite can be accessed by the literary detective. There are excellent examples of the detective story being bent into different shapes in speculative fiction – think The City and the City, Finch, Osama, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union – but this is one of the first examples I have come across of a literary rural crime novel (though I'm sure there are more out there).
Set in and around an isolated Hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales, Turning Blue is gorgeously written but oppressively dark. It’s not a book for the faint hearted, diving headfirst into a world exposed partly by Operation Yewtree – the book contains a clear analogue/composite of Savile and Stuart Hall – a world of grubby porn cinemas, murder and abuses of power. It’s deeply uncomfortable, essential reading, examining something very rotten in British society. I loved it, though love is probably the wrong word here...
November 17, 2016
The depths of winter in the isolated Yorkshire Dales and a teenage girl is missing.
At a derelict farm high up on a hillside Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets. Nobody knows the bleak moors better than him, or their hiding places.
Obsessive, taciturn and solitary, detective Jim Brindle is relentless in pursuing justice. But he is not alone in his growing preoccupation with the case. Local journalist Roddy Mace has moved north from London to build a new life.
As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity and fixture of the nation's Saturday night TV. 'Lovely Larry' Lister has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.
Found this quite difficult to read at times,firstly due to the way it is punctuated ,it just keeps flowing without commas or punctuation and also the the story is depraved and gory. Made me feel squeamish. The landscape is also a major character,bleak and unforgiving. Not really sure how I feel about it. The writer is very talented though,writing quite poetically in places and setting the scene plus leaving a lot to the imagination.
Disturbing overall and deep.
At a derelict farm high up on a hillside Steven Rutter, a destitute loner, harbours secrets. Nobody knows the bleak moors better than him, or their hiding places.
Obsessive, taciturn and solitary, detective Jim Brindle is relentless in pursuing justice. But he is not alone in his growing preoccupation with the case. Local journalist Roddy Mace has moved north from London to build a new life.
As Brindle and Mace begin to prise the secrets of the case from tight-lipped locals, their investigation leads first to the pillars of the community and finally to a local celebrity and fixture of the nation's Saturday night TV. 'Lovely Larry' Lister has his own hiding places, and his own dark tastes.
Found this quite difficult to read at times,firstly due to the way it is punctuated ,it just keeps flowing without commas or punctuation and also the the story is depraved and gory. Made me feel squeamish. The landscape is also a major character,bleak and unforgiving. Not really sure how I feel about it. The writer is very talented though,writing quite poetically in places and setting the scene plus leaving a lot to the imagination.
Disturbing overall and deep.
March 28, 2023
Ben Meyers has created an unusual, dark take on the traditional small-town crime novel. It's clear from the early chapters who has committed the central crime, so it the usual whodunnit template is done away with. Instead, tension is created through the vivid, intensely-imagined cast, the collision of urban and rural, the unfolding of the layers of the past that led to this result.
The sense of landscape is extraordinary, with the moors a dense, brooding, violently uncaring presence throughout. Meyers' exploration of the deep misogyny inherent in his perpetrator's world is disturbing and at times almost suffocating, but so extraordinarily well done that you won't be able to look away.
The only quibble I had is that you never get to see the victim (or indeed any female character) as a fully-rounded person. This does render the misogynistic world of the perpetrator somewhat overwhelming and unrelenting - and has beena feature of the author's other works.
The sense of landscape is extraordinary, with the moors a dense, brooding, violently uncaring presence throughout. Meyers' exploration of the deep misogyny inherent in his perpetrator's world is disturbing and at times almost suffocating, but so extraordinarily well done that you won't be able to look away.
The only quibble I had is that you never get to see the victim (or indeed any female character) as a fully-rounded person. This does render the misogynistic world of the perpetrator somewhat overwhelming and unrelenting - and has beena feature of the author's other works.
May 16, 2017
This reads more like a screenplay for Broadchurch. But with grim copper and dissolute reporter, instead of grim copper and girl copper. And gay, too. Though that doesn't come into it that much. It's not really a whodunnit, either, as you know who the baddies are pretty quick. The thing about that is you have to have some compelling baddies, and Myers's baddies are, besides the killer, pulled out of a hat.
It's a little too grim for me. And the premise is somewhat far-fetched. Also, interior monologues/point of view of killers always strike me as excess page-filler. You know when you see those pages and pages of italics that it is time to skim. But the rest of the writing is good, and protagonists interesting, but can't bump it up to 3 star. There's a sequel coming I can feel it. I can't really recommend it.
It's a little too grim for me. And the premise is somewhat far-fetched. Also, interior monologues/point of view of killers always strike me as excess page-filler. You know when you see those pages and pages of italics that it is time to skim. But the rest of the writing is good, and protagonists interesting, but can't bump it up to 3 star. There's a sequel coming I can feel it. I can't really recommend it.
April 26, 2020
2.5 stars -- Gruesome post-murder antics combine with a small town conspiracy to deliver a hit-and-mainly-miss thriller. I had no problem with the quality of Myer's language (it was quite good) nor his boldness in keeping the reader queasy -- long after I set the book down, I could smell the odoriferous antagonist and the rotting, bloated corpse he liked to play with. I guess I just didn't want to read about a stinky guy playing with a rotting body until it turned to mush. Yep, I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
September 18, 2018
This is the third novel I have read by Benjamin Myers, and my favourite of his works so far. He still seems to be wearing his influences on his sleeve, but is a talented enough writer that I know that one day he will truly find his own voice. The story here is strong, it is like a cross between The Red Riding Series and the League of Gentleman. Truly disturbing in places, the ghost of Jimmy Saville hovers all around it, lending the story a contemporary edge.
November 20, 2019
Absolutely loved this book. Literally grabbed it off the shelf at the library last thing to make up my 6 books for the month as the cover looked interesting and so glad I did. A very different writing style but almost poetic, I found I was reading it out loud to myself. Very dark and a real page turner. They don't have the follow up at our library so I've downloaded it on my Kindle and can't wait to read it.
December 17, 2019
It's grim, it's gruesome, it's grisly, but also gripping. A detective investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl in the Yorkshire Dales hooks up with a journalist sent to cover the story. In the process they uncover the sleazy underbelly that you don't see in the tourist brochures. To be fair, I used to live in the Dales and never had wind of anything worse than poaching, but this is fiction, after all.
I honestly can't say if I enjoyed it, but I couldn't put it down.
I honestly can't say if I enjoyed it, but I couldn't put it down.
July 3, 2017
Wow. I live amongst the moors, the reservoirs, the hills and tight-knit community and was entranced by their description. The writing in this book is stunning. The story was almost incidental, but what a story! So many contemporary resonances - definitely not comfortable, but certainly gripping. I highly recommend this book and am turning to The Gallows Pole next.
February 19, 2021
Gave up on this although clearly a good writer. Had wanted a gripping thriller but this was way too dark for me. Details graphic abuse repeatedly. A shame really as had looked forward to my first Ben Myers but not ideal for insomniac.
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