To bring the story about two 19th-century men into contemporary times, and set the plot in motion, she used the device of a bog body with South Seas tattoos that is found after a heavy rain.Ĭould this be the remains of Fletcher Christian, whose grave was never found on Pitcairn Island? “I start with an idea and play with it until I find out whose story it is, how to make it work and how to draw characters that come alive.” “Story is what drives my books,” McDermid says. When she ran the idea past the director of the Wordsworth Trust, he found it improbable but plausible. In fact, one of the characters in her novel refers to Wordsworth as boringĪs for Fletcher Christian, the only thing McDermid knew about him was based on the Marlon Brando film “Mutiny on the Bounty.”Īfter poring through books, letters and archives, McDermid found nothing that would contradicted her idea that Christian could have told his story to his old schoolmate, Wordsworth, after returning from his voyages. McDermid studied Words-worth at Oxford (from which she graduated in 1975), but he was not one of her favorite poets. In her exuberance, McDermid didn’t realize it would take her eight years to research her subjects: “So much was known about Wordsworth and Christian that I felt I had to get it right.” The other writers finally told me to shut up and have another drink.” I was as excited as a child on Christmas Eve.
There were lots of writers in that room, but I was the only one to whom this spoke, which just shows the individual nature of inspiration. “I knew then I was going to write about the Bounty and Wordsworth. And he talked about the old rumor that Fletcher came back to England. Then, the man said that the Lake District in the 19th century was good for fugitives because there was lots of space, not too many people and no law. “Ten years ago, I attended a meeting of crime writers at which an expert on the Lake District (in northwestern England) said that Fletcher Christian and Wordsworth were classmates. And it isn't just the truth that is waiting to be discovered, but a bounty worth millions. The centuries-old mystery is putting lives at risk. She believes that the Lakeland poet William Wordsworth, a friend of Christian's, may have sheltered the fugitive and turned his tale into an epic poem - which has since disappeared.īut as she follows each lead, death is hard on her heels. Could it be linked to the old rumour that Fletcher Christian, mutinous First Mate on the Bounty, had secretly returned to England? It's summer in the Lake District and heavy rain over the fells has uncovered a bizarrely tattooed body. The award-winning and Number One bestselling Val McDermid crafts an electrifying psychological suspense thriller that mixes history, heritage and heinous crimes.Ī 200 year-old-secret is now a matter of life and death.
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