Review of A DARK MATTER by Doug Johnstone

3.5 Stars 

I’m a latecomer to the Skelf series; there are now four books following three generations of Skelf women living in Edinburgh.  I’m glad to have made their acquaintance.

This first novel in the series begins with the death of Jim Skelf, the patriarch of the family.  After his passing, his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny, and granddaughter Hannah take over the family’s funeral home and private investigator businesses.  Besides grieving, each of the three has a case to solve.  Dorothy sets out to find out why Jim was paying an unknown woman a stipend every month for years.  Jenny is hired by a woman to find proof that her husband is cheating on her.  And when her roommate Mel goes missing, Hannah is determined to find her. 

The novel has a great opening sentence:  “Her dad took much longer to burn than she expected.”  What a great way to grab the reader’s attention.  There follow 64 short, snappy chapters alternating among the three Skelf women. 

It is the three women who are the main attraction.  Dorothy is 70, Jenny is in her mid-40s, and Hannah is 20 so they are of three different generations with different perspectives on life.  Dorothy and Hannah are the most similar; Dorothy will stop at nothing to learn the truth and her granddaughter is tenacious in her search for Mel.  Jenny seems the most fragile; she has lost her job and seems not to have recovered from her divorce though it’s been a decade, so she drinks too much and makes some questionable choices.  What I liked is that all three women are flawed; they all make mistakes and jump to conclusions. 

Dorothy is my favourite, perhaps because I’m closest to her in age.  She does not behave like a stereotypical septuagenarian.  Though she practices yoga, she also plays the drums.  As expected, she spends time reflecting on her life and how she, an American from California, came to be in Scotland.  I enjoyed her musings about life.

Men do not fare well in terms of their depiction.  Many are portrayed as sexist.  Jenny confronts a man suspected in Mel’s disappearance and she thinks, “He had no experience of this, hadn’t ever had to fend off a sexual advance, an unwanted hand, an accidental squeeze of your breast that wasn’t accidental at all.”  One male who is portrayed positively is Thomas Olsson, Dorothy’s policeman friend.  Unfortunately, he does not come across as credible:  he seems to be at the Skelf family’s beck and call, running DNA tests, stepping in to assist in their cases, and freely sharing information on on-going investigations. 

Another weakness is the improbable illegal events; there’s a backyard cremation, two nighttime disinterments, a break-in, and two assaults.  Yet the Skelfs must be coated in Teflon because they never suffer any consequences.  Certainly the weapon Dorothy uses to defend herself in an attack should have inspired Thomas to ask some questions. 

Though the book could be classified as a crime drama, it also has qualities of literary fiction.  It emphasizes that it is impossible to really know anyone.  We all have secrets and different sides to our personalities.  Certainly, all three Skelf women learn that those very close to them have secrets.  The novel also emphasizes inter-connectedness:  “the tendrils of life spread out like a single organism, each reliant on being part of the greater whole for its continued existence.”  And one thing that connects all of us is the inevitability of death.  The book reminded me of Six Feet Under, a television series I loved.  Both focus on human mortality, the death industry, and the lives of those who deal with it on a daily basis. 

I am sufficiently intrigued with the Skelf women to want to find out what happens next.