Sixteen Horses

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Utterly brilliant. Poetry and cinema at once. If this isn’t one of the biggest titles of 2021 I’ll eat my hat.”

Autor Greg Buchanan hat hier einen ganz besonderen Roman erschaffen, der für mich jenseits der Grenzen eines normalen Krimis liegt. Die Handlung ist weder gradlinig noch leicht nachvollziehbar und bietet viel mehr als einen einfach Kriminalfall.Tell me why I need POVs from Ada, or Frank the vet. Tell me why Charles killed himself? What so Simon found out he likes kiddy porn and uses him to help him commit the crime or something? It’s never talked about at all.

No one can accept fatalities as a certainty at any race and no one, least of all anyone in racing, wants to see what we witnessed in Saturday’s National.” Animal Rising claim their actions aimed to prevent deaths Set in the English seaside town of IImarsh, a town that is well past its sell by date and falling apart(as much the star of this book as the characters),when a farmer and his daughter discover the heads of sixteen horses buried in a circle on their land one early morning, Alec, the local detective goes out to investigate. The heads are buried on their sides, all with one eye above ground, the tails in a bundle near by. Er spürte Staub auf der Haut, den Staub all jener Wesen, die hier gelebt hatten und gestorben waren. Die dunkle Wasseroberfläche schien die Sterne festzuhalten, als stünde der Nachthimmel im Bann des von Schilf gesäumten Sees. Die Form des Gewässers glich einer auf die Erde gestürzten Mondsichel."A local police officer & a forensic veterinarian investigate a chain of connected crimes... but soon find themselves unable to leave town, stalked by an unseen force. It starts out with the discovery of sixteen killed horses, just their heads - oh, and their tails - in a muddy field. The local police detective and an animal forensic scientist set out to learn what killed them and who and how and why. All very standard for a thriller/horror/mystery read. (I am so not sure which genre this book really is.) But the more you read, the deeper into the mud of the story and the characters' lives you get. (And it is super muddy.) The locale: A fading seaside town, which we are reminded of at least a dozen times. Closed-up shops. Abandoned buildings. The ruined facades of amusement arcades, and so on. This being a 'literary' crime, I found the writing quite refreshing. I'm not usually one to enjoy flouncy writing but it really worked for me in this one. At times I was frustrated to not be getting any answers, but there was also enough between the lines for me to work with.

I’m being generous with the second star. The entire first half is unbearably gruesome with details of how the eponymous horses are killed. Horrid stuff.The mystery element is what kept me reading and I managed to finish this one, despite the actual reveal and the motivations behind it being utterly unsatisfying and it left me shaking my head at it. His hunger outlives him. His teeming gut, his microbiome aflame with all the bacteria and symbiotic juices, they carry on. All that life within him continues consuming and breathing until it can breathe no more. He digests himself.' As a huge fan of Sixteen Horses I was eager to read Greg Buchanan's second novel, I was immersed immediately and throughout. Alle personages in het dorp hebben zo hun geheimen. In het echt weet je ook niet altijd wat er achter iemands voordeur gebeurt, maar hier wordt alles uitvergroot en benadrukt.