Review by Win Wiacek
As nations and cultures, we all think we’re special, but every so often a piece of art comes along and the belief is that no other nationality could have produced it. That’s an especially inescapable conclusion after indulging in the glorious melange that is this intriguing annal of Albion.
Rendered and reproduced as soft and subtle pencil drawings, Blackwood is quintessentially English. It channels the beloved countryside, quirky folk of different classes (co-existing if not actually living in harmony), witchcraft, cosy murder-mysteries, corrupt councils, devil-worshipping mystic masons, ordinary people well in over their heads, inbred insularity and racism, and an extremely reserved, controlled sense of events getting away from you. There’s also a chilling sense that there’s always more going on under the surface of civility and respectability than meets your eye.
Best of all, as this tale of identical rural murders occurs simultaneously 65 years apart, we see – up close and personal – just how much and how little society has changed, especially when the modern-day killing draws in troublesome nosy strangers from outside the community! And even foreigners!
Augmented by an afterword detailing the generational tale’s real-world inspirations, this is a yarn that only comes from gifted, thoughtful artists like Hannah Eaton who have seen a bit of the world before settling down to devise their own.
Channelling delicious notes of Gary Spencer Milledge’s Strangehaven and the first series of Broadchurch, this very human-scaled spotlight is funny, scary and seductively compelling, like the best Scandi-dramas, but with tea and a Victoria Sponge all laid on.
Is Blackwood a heartfelt paean to a forgotten place and time or a devious attack on oppressive social structures and change-based bias that still hold us apart and down? Yes, no, maybe and mind your own business. It is a chilling, delightful and utterly compelling mystery that, once read, will not be forgotten.
So, go do that then, right?
