You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.15 AVERAGE
3.15 AVERAGE
Totally solid thriller.
The stark difference in pacing between the first and second half was a little offputting, but I get what Mason was trying to do.
Overall worth your time if you're looking for a dark crime novel.
The stark difference in pacing between the first and second half was a little offputting, but I get what Mason was trying to do.
Overall worth your time if you're looking for a dark crime novel.
I've always been a huge Hitchcock fan, even though I grew up well after the height of his career. Personally, I like his darker films, those with a bit of macabre humour to them, like The Trouble With Harry. It's rare to find anybody who can manage to recapture that magic - Shallow Grave is the only successful example that comes to mind - so I was cautiously optimistic when Three Graves Full came my way and I read the opening of the cover blurb:
More than a year ago, mild-mannered Jason Getty killed a man he wished he’d never met. Then he planted the problem a little too close to home. But just as he’s learning to live with the undeniable reality of what he’s done, police unearth two bodies on his property—neither of which is the one Jason buried.
Much to my delight, Jamie Mason absolutely nailed the difficult mix of macabre humour and horrific suspense, weaving a story that keeps the reader on edge, never quite sure in which direction it will go. It all starts with a meek, quiet, lonely young man by the name of Jason who is still mourning the untimely death of his wife - who was planning to leave him - and who is haunted by the body he buried at the back of his property line. Too wracked with guilt to tend to his lawn, he calls in a professional landscaping service to tidy up the front yard and the sides of his house, where the discover the first body.
The discovery of the second body leads us to Leah, an equally quiet, equally lonely young woman who is still mourning the murder of her husband, and who is haunted by the the absence of a body to provide closure. It also leads us to Boyd, a man on the fringe of society with a connection to Jason's house, Leah's husband, and the second body buried beneath the window. If it all sounds convoluted and complicated, it is, but that's part of the beauty of the tale. Mason slowly unveils the life story of these characters, connecting the dots for us, while establishing their deepest motives.
Once the police begin to close in, the tension truly begins to mount, and once Jason decides he has to dig up the third body before the police do, all three characters find themselves drawn together in a case of mistaken identities, misplaced suspicious, and wrong-place/wrong-time disasters. It's the kind of story where you can see the twists coming, but can do nothing to evade them, no matter how much you cringe. With the bulk of the action taking place over about 12 hours, you just want everybody to stop, to pause, and to take a breath, but fear and guilt do not make for rational thought.
Even once the story switches from subtle mystery to over-the-top action, Mason keeps tight hold of the reigns, somehow managing to juggle all the different plot lines and character motivations. By the time we careen madly towards the conclusion, with strange alliances and fresh bodies muddying things further, the story takes a final twist, and this time you don't see it coming. It works - beautifully, in fact - with a finale that's not only rewarding on its own, but worthy of the intricate tale that proceeds it.
Extraordinarily well-done, this is a book that I would love to see filmed, but only with the right director at the helm. If you're a fan of Hitchcock, or perhaps the Coen brothers, there is a lot here to enjoy. If that opening of the cover blurb sounds at all appealing, then give it a read - you won't regret it.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
More than a year ago, mild-mannered Jason Getty killed a man he wished he’d never met. Then he planted the problem a little too close to home. But just as he’s learning to live with the undeniable reality of what he’s done, police unearth two bodies on his property—neither of which is the one Jason buried.
Much to my delight, Jamie Mason absolutely nailed the difficult mix of macabre humour and horrific suspense, weaving a story that keeps the reader on edge, never quite sure in which direction it will go. It all starts with a meek, quiet, lonely young man by the name of Jason who is still mourning the untimely death of his wife - who was planning to leave him - and who is haunted by the body he buried at the back of his property line. Too wracked with guilt to tend to his lawn, he calls in a professional landscaping service to tidy up the front yard and the sides of his house, where the discover the first body.
The discovery of the second body leads us to Leah, an equally quiet, equally lonely young woman who is still mourning the murder of her husband, and who is haunted by the the absence of a body to provide closure. It also leads us to Boyd, a man on the fringe of society with a connection to Jason's house, Leah's husband, and the second body buried beneath the window. If it all sounds convoluted and complicated, it is, but that's part of the beauty of the tale. Mason slowly unveils the life story of these characters, connecting the dots for us, while establishing their deepest motives.
Once the police begin to close in, the tension truly begins to mount, and once Jason decides he has to dig up the third body before the police do, all three characters find themselves drawn together in a case of mistaken identities, misplaced suspicious, and wrong-place/wrong-time disasters. It's the kind of story where you can see the twists coming, but can do nothing to evade them, no matter how much you cringe. With the bulk of the action taking place over about 12 hours, you just want everybody to stop, to pause, and to take a breath, but fear and guilt do not make for rational thought.
Even once the story switches from subtle mystery to over-the-top action, Mason keeps tight hold of the reigns, somehow managing to juggle all the different plot lines and character motivations. By the time we careen madly towards the conclusion, with strange alliances and fresh bodies muddying things further, the story takes a final twist, and this time you don't see it coming. It works - beautifully, in fact - with a finale that's not only rewarding on its own, but worthy of the intricate tale that proceeds it.
Extraordinarily well-done, this is a book that I would love to see filmed, but only with the right director at the helm. If you're a fan of Hitchcock, or perhaps the Coen brothers, there is a lot here to enjoy. If that opening of the cover blurb sounds at all appealing, then give it a read - you won't regret it.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
I could not resist the first line of this book and had to read it ASAP. Very good psychological suspense; lots of interesting insight into human character and a cracking plot.
Jason Getty considers the murder he committed to be an accident, a crime of passion, a man truly reaching his breaking point and reacting without thinking out the consequences. Though he has finally found himself laughing and having hints of a normal life in the past year, he still thinks of Gary Harris, the man he killed, fairly often. That might be due to the proximity - Gary Harris is buried in Jason's backyard. When the landscaper comes to Jason's door saying he found something, Jason knows that he'll finally have to confess to his crime. Instead, the landscapers have found two other graves, and Jason has no clue who they belong to. This kicks off a story filled with suspense, never knowing who to believe, and a little trouble with keeping the characters and their histories straight. If you want an entertaining read, this is it.
Jason wasn’t sure he could take this. He toyed with the image of falling to his knees, confessing all, and baptizing Bayard’s loafers in a flood of contrite tears. Except that would have been a lie and he wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to pull it off. He wasn’t one bit sorry that he’d killed that son of a bitch.
Mostly he avoided thinking about it—the actual killing and that the world was short one human being because of Jason Getty. The decision to hide the evidence on his property was an enormous regret, of course, especially now. But when the torture of the rest of the problem fell away, as it occasionally did, and the bottom line stared back at him, Jason tingled with triumph. There was horror and revulsion and a crippling fear of getting caught, but there was also satisfaction. He’d stopped it. He’d shut that vile mouth once and for all and wiped the smug smile off his lousy face. He’d seen that bastard’s blood on his own hands.
***
It’s been seventeen months since relatively mild-mannered widower Jason Getty killed a man in his own home and buried the corpse in his backyard. Determined to resume life as it once was, and to again appear entirely normal to his neighbours, Jason hires landscapers to come in and tidy up his property, which he’d been too ill at ease to do himself since the night—after being pushed too far for too long—he bludgeoned a con man named Gary Harris to death with a telephone.
So what do the landscapers unearth? The remains of a body, naturally, but not the body of the man Jason murdered. Another is quickly found for a total of two bodies, a man and a woman, buried beneath the flowerbeds out in front of Jason’s house. How they got there, why, and what this means for Jason’s freedom and emotional stability—and the likelihood of the discovery of the third body in his backyard—are the core story elements in author Jamie Mason’s debut novel, Three Graves Full.
A good suspense novel can be hinge on many different factors. Sometimes it’s the strength of the characters and the mystery (or mysteries) they’re attempting to resolve; subversion tactics are also common, splitting perspectives until all sides are told, bringing clarity to the central conflict. Three Graves Full certainly uses the latter to good effect, splitting the narrative four or five ways (or six or seven, depending on the odd significant other and the seldom used canine point of view) as the novel races towards its climax.
The characters and mystery, unfortunately, are not overly strong. Most of the characters feel two-dimensional, and it’s the situations they’re in that inform their decisions, rather than their personalities or natural shortcomings.
Where Three Graves Full shines, however, is in how it draws in the various plot details to an almost entirely satisfying climax. As previously mentioned, the mysteries behind the three bodies in Jason’s front and back yards are not all that deep. In fact, most of the novel’s mysteries are resolved by the story’s mid-point. What remains are the cascading together of the four different stories: Jason’s history with Gary Harris, an aggressive and threatening con man; Leah Tamblin’s search for answers regarding her finance’s disappearance and subsequent demise; Boyd Montgomery’s murderous behaviour; and Detective Tim Bayard’s investigation into all of the above.
Despite being a murderer, Jason grows into a fairly likable leading man. Though at first he seems rather detestable and anxiety ridden, as the details surrounding his own crime come to light—the crime itself being almost a crime of passion with the added benefit of self-preservation—his humanity begins to break through his guilt-ridden exterior. Mason makes it possible to root for a man who has killed in not-so-cold blood—something that didn’t feel possible until he started to reveal to Leah the past he’d worked so hard to keep hidden. What feels in the beginning to be nothing more than a convenient plot device—bringing in landscapers who most certainly could do exactly what they wound up doing by unearthing something incriminating—becomes something more as Mason reveals more of Jason’s character and troubled back story. The lies are a hindrance to Jason, and the more time that passes living in the shadow of a lie, the more he becomes less and less the man he’d hoped he’d be. His call to the landscapers is a cry for help: a test of his own lies, and his willingness to accept whatever fate has in store for him.
The same depth cannot be attributed to the other characters in this novel, all of whom feel more like foils than fully realized creations. Fortunately, their limitations do little to hurt the narrative’s propulsive thrust, and Mason still manages to drive the individual threads to a satisfying if not unexpected resolution.
Mason’s writing is a bit of a mixed bag. For the novel’s first half she relies a bit too often on extraneous adjectives and descriptive devices. At times the writing disrupts the narrative’s pace with unnecessary digressions or observations, but never so much that it pulled me away from the story. The second half of the novel is a different beast—well paced and economical. Mason understands the need for brevity when drawing together the various narrative threads. One near-death stabbing in the middle of the novel and the villain’s final moments are confusingly written, but otherwise Mason’s writing well serves the story at hand.
Mostly he avoided thinking about it—the actual killing and that the world was short one human being because of Jason Getty. The decision to hide the evidence on his property was an enormous regret, of course, especially now. But when the torture of the rest of the problem fell away, as it occasionally did, and the bottom line stared back at him, Jason tingled with triumph. There was horror and revulsion and a crippling fear of getting caught, but there was also satisfaction. He’d stopped it. He’d shut that vile mouth once and for all and wiped the smug smile off his lousy face. He’d seen that bastard’s blood on his own hands.
***
It’s been seventeen months since relatively mild-mannered widower Jason Getty killed a man in his own home and buried the corpse in his backyard. Determined to resume life as it once was, and to again appear entirely normal to his neighbours, Jason hires landscapers to come in and tidy up his property, which he’d been too ill at ease to do himself since the night—after being pushed too far for too long—he bludgeoned a con man named Gary Harris to death with a telephone.
So what do the landscapers unearth? The remains of a body, naturally, but not the body of the man Jason murdered. Another is quickly found for a total of two bodies, a man and a woman, buried beneath the flowerbeds out in front of Jason’s house. How they got there, why, and what this means for Jason’s freedom and emotional stability—and the likelihood of the discovery of the third body in his backyard—are the core story elements in author Jamie Mason’s debut novel, Three Graves Full.
A good suspense novel can be hinge on many different factors. Sometimes it’s the strength of the characters and the mystery (or mysteries) they’re attempting to resolve; subversion tactics are also common, splitting perspectives until all sides are told, bringing clarity to the central conflict. Three Graves Full certainly uses the latter to good effect, splitting the narrative four or five ways (or six or seven, depending on the odd significant other and the seldom used canine point of view) as the novel races towards its climax.
The characters and mystery, unfortunately, are not overly strong. Most of the characters feel two-dimensional, and it’s the situations they’re in that inform their decisions, rather than their personalities or natural shortcomings.
Where Three Graves Full shines, however, is in how it draws in the various plot details to an almost entirely satisfying climax. As previously mentioned, the mysteries behind the three bodies in Jason’s front and back yards are not all that deep. In fact, most of the novel’s mysteries are resolved by the story’s mid-point. What remains are the cascading together of the four different stories: Jason’s history with Gary Harris, an aggressive and threatening con man; Leah Tamblin’s search for answers regarding her finance’s disappearance and subsequent demise; Boyd Montgomery’s murderous behaviour; and Detective Tim Bayard’s investigation into all of the above.
Despite being a murderer, Jason grows into a fairly likable leading man. Though at first he seems rather detestable and anxiety ridden, as the details surrounding his own crime come to light—the crime itself being almost a crime of passion with the added benefit of self-preservation—his humanity begins to break through his guilt-ridden exterior. Mason makes it possible to root for a man who has killed in not-so-cold blood—something that didn’t feel possible until he started to reveal to Leah the past he’d worked so hard to keep hidden. What feels in the beginning to be nothing more than a convenient plot device—bringing in landscapers who most certainly could do exactly what they wound up doing by unearthing something incriminating—becomes something more as Mason reveals more of Jason’s character and troubled back story. The lies are a hindrance to Jason, and the more time that passes living in the shadow of a lie, the more he becomes less and less the man he’d hoped he’d be. His call to the landscapers is a cry for help: a test of his own lies, and his willingness to accept whatever fate has in store for him.
The same depth cannot be attributed to the other characters in this novel, all of whom feel more like foils than fully realized creations. Fortunately, their limitations do little to hurt the narrative’s propulsive thrust, and Mason still manages to drive the individual threads to a satisfying if not unexpected resolution.
Mason’s writing is a bit of a mixed bag. For the novel’s first half she relies a bit too often on extraneous adjectives and descriptive devices. At times the writing disrupts the narrative’s pace with unnecessary digressions or observations, but never so much that it pulled me away from the story. The second half of the novel is a different beast—well paced and economical. Mason understands the need for brevity when drawing together the various narrative threads. One near-death stabbing in the middle of the novel and the villain’s final moments are confusingly written, but otherwise Mason’s writing well serves the story at hand.
There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard.
That's how you begin a novel worth spending a snow day reading.
Jason Getty had grown accustomed to the strangling night terrors, the randomly prickling palms, the bright, aching surges of adrenaline at the sight of Mrs. Truesdell's dog trotting across the lawn with some unidentifiable thing clamped in its jaws. It had been seventeen months since he'd sweated over the narrow trench he'd carved at the back border of his property; since he'd rolled the body out of the real world and into his dreams.
Jason is not a strong man in any respect, not the type you'd expect to have a body buried in the yard. The anxiety of his secret, not guilt but fear of being found out, is tearing him apart. He can't even bring himself to work on his yard, so he finally hires landscapers to take care of the front...just the front. Unfortunately for Jason, there are two bodies buried there, which causes the police to start digging up his yard, searching his house, and otherwise disturbing the quiet life of anonymity he's been clinging to so desperately.
In her acknowledgements, Mason thanks [a:Tana French|138825|Tana French|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1277505771p2/138825.jpg], who "extended encouragement and friendship when she was too busy to do so. She treated a fan like a peer, and I don't know why she did it, but it's one of the finest things that's ever happened to me." I can see how Mason might be influenced by French, in that both write addictive, gritty prose with flawed, but sympathetic characters. However, Mason's writing is in no way derivative of French's. The mysteries, such as they are, are solved pretty quickly, at least for the reader. Instead, this is the story of the aftermath of murder, for the murderers and those left behind. The detectives are mostly along for the ride, not driving the story. That said, I think fans of Ms. French will enjoy this. I certainly did, and I look forward to seeing what Ms. Mason writes next.
Warning: There's a fair amount of gore. Bodies that have been in the ground for 17 months are neither pretty nor fragrant.
That's how you begin a novel worth spending a snow day reading.
Jason Getty had grown accustomed to the strangling night terrors, the randomly prickling palms, the bright, aching surges of adrenaline at the sight of Mrs. Truesdell's dog trotting across the lawn with some unidentifiable thing clamped in its jaws. It had been seventeen months since he'd sweated over the narrow trench he'd carved at the back border of his property; since he'd rolled the body out of the real world and into his dreams.
Jason is not a strong man in any respect, not the type you'd expect to have a body buried in the yard. The anxiety of his secret, not guilt but fear of being found out, is tearing him apart. He can't even bring himself to work on his yard, so he finally hires landscapers to take care of the front...just the front. Unfortunately for Jason, there are two bodies buried there, which causes the police to start digging up his yard, searching his house, and otherwise disturbing the quiet life of anonymity he's been clinging to so desperately.
In her acknowledgements, Mason thanks [a:Tana French|138825|Tana French|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1277505771p2/138825.jpg], who "extended encouragement and friendship when she was too busy to do so. She treated a fan like a peer, and I don't know why she did it, but it's one of the finest things that's ever happened to me." I can see how Mason might be influenced by French, in that both write addictive, gritty prose with flawed, but sympathetic characters. However, Mason's writing is in no way derivative of French's. The mysteries, such as they are, are solved pretty quickly, at least for the reader. Instead, this is the story of the aftermath of murder, for the murderers and those left behind. The detectives are mostly along for the ride, not driving the story. That said, I think fans of Ms. French will enjoy this. I certainly did, and I look forward to seeing what Ms. Mason writes next.
Warning: There's a fair amount of gore. Bodies that have been in the ground for 17 months are neither pretty nor fragrant.
This book had so much potential that never came to fruition. What could be better than the discovery of two bodies but neither body is the one the homeowner buried. And that's where the story stopped being interesting. I waited and waited for "the thriller with a dash of sharp humor" to show up. But all I seemed to find was alot of confusion about who was talking and why was it necessary for us to know what the Tessa was thinking. At times it felt like I was reading a book about Lassie. I have to say that I was relieved to finally find out what happened to Harris' motorcycle. That nagged at me the whole time that I was reading this book.
Reminded me a bit of Fargo. Almost comical in its coincidences and convolutions. Great characters.