Bleeding Heart Yard, by Elly Griffiths, is the third in her Harbinder Kaur series, which I’ve so far enjoyed very much. The first, The Stranger Diaries, was a gothic-inspired story set at a school; the second, The Postscript Murders, concerned the death of an elderly woman who worked as a “murder consultant”, advising crime writers on how to kills their characters. These books are set in or near Brighton, but at the start of Bleeding Heart Yard, Harbinder’s just been promoted to Detective Inspector and moved to a flatshare in London. In Harbinder is one of several point of view characters, with the other people caught up in the murder narrating sections from their own points of view. This one starts with a prologue from the first-person perspective of Cassie Fitzherbert, Harbinder’s new DS. She opens with the arresting question “Is it possible to forget that you’ve committed a murder? Well, I’m here to tell you that it is”.
It becomes apparent pretty soon that, as a teenager, Cassie and some of her schoolfriends killed one of their peers. It was reported as a tragic accident – teenager falls onto tracks while celebrating the end of exams – but those in the tight-knit friendship group (who called themselves The Group in a very teenage sort of way) remembers it differently. Then, at a school reunion – the first time The Group have been together in twenty years – one of their number, Tory MP Garfield, turns up dead… Cassie can’t help with the investigation, of course. She’s a witness. But could she – or one of her old friends – be something more than that?
For the most part, I really enjoyed this. I don’t love all the mucking about with different perspectives and tenses that goes on in contemporary crime novels, but I think Griffiths is better than a lot of authors at using these perspectives to both conceal and reveal pertinent information. In this novel, there are three different perspectives – Cassie’s and her old friend Anna’s, both in past tense, and the close third person present tense that Griffiths tends to use for Harbinder’s perspective. Of course, Cassie and Anna are both thinking back on the events of twenty years ago, while also reflecting on more recent events. I read it from start to finish on a very grey Saturday. Unusually, I did care about the two romantic intrigues that ran along in the background of the novel, and didn’t resent time spent on these for taking away from the plot. I also found the setting interesting: Cassie and The Group went to a state-funded comp, but the sort of state-funded comp whose intake is mostly “people who have bought very expensive London homes specifically so that their children can attend it”. Most of the friendship group are the children of barristers or surgeons. Only Anna, who grew up in a local tower block and is acutely aware of her outside status, breaks the mould. She’s now returned to Attlee Towers to be with her mum, who has terminal cancer. I felt the relationship between the two of them was done really well – probably the highlight of the book for me.
That said, I found Harbinder more compelling in the Brighton setting. The conflict between her at work – a highly professional and competent detective at the top of her game – and at home, where she plays a lot of Panda Pop on her phone, hasn’t told her parents she’s gay, and both enjoys and resents living with them – sets up an interesting series of internal conflicts for her. I especially loved the amount of scenes with her parents in The Postscript Murders. By this book, she’s been promoted, moved to London, and there’s a hint of romantic intrigue with her flatmate. All of those are obviously life improvements for Harbinder, the Person, but they do rather make Harbinder, the Character, less distinctive and more like the central character in other mysteries. Related, there was a moment that altogether broke my suspension of disbelief, where Harbinder responds in an unprofessional and unbelievable way to a development in the case. This is totally at odds with everything we’ve learnt about her in the past, and doesn’t seem justified by the character development she’s had since The Stranger Diaries.
Also, I have to nitpick. This is a minor spoiler related to the murder method (though not whodunnit – and we find out howdunnit within a couple of chapters): Garfield dies of insulin poisoning. There are two insulin-dependent diabetics in The Group, Chris Foster and Cassie Fitzherbert, along other people who have access to insulin via work etc. Both Chris and Cassie seem to have T1 diabetes. (Cassie says hers was brought on by pregnancy, although gestational diabetes is actually much more of a risk factor for developing T2). That isn’t my main issue, though. Rather: if your murder weapon is an insulin syringe, find out how insulin’s actually administered in 2022, please. Chris describes himself as using an “EpiPen” to administer his insulin, which is nonsense. An EpiPen has an intramuscular needle; insulin is administered subcutaneously. More seriously, Cassie still uses insulin syringes, which are now rare in the UK because they’re dangerous. I’ve never worked at a trust that even carried them. I found an old box of them on my ward once and I had to report it! Someone like Cassie – youngish, active and healthy, comfortable with technology, her condition well-controlled, would almost certainly be on an insulin pump. It just took me totally out of the story. If someone uses some obscure drug in a story and happens to get it slightly wrong, it doesn’t bother me (if I even notice). But insulin?!
Now that I have driven everyone off with my pedantry, let me finish by reiterating that I enjoyed this a lot. After all, I flew through it in a day! I have been a slow and plodding reader so far this year, so to read something cover to cover, all the while having a great time, is very welcome. There were more credibility issues with this story than with the other two Harbinder Kaur novels that I’ve read, Harbinder herself was less interesting, and there were a few other nitpicky things like the clumsy insertion of references to previous cases; none of this stopped me from thoroughly enjoying myself. I’ll wait a bit before I pick up the new installment in the series, but I will definitely read it.