When They Lay Bare

GREIG, Andrew

ISBN 10: 057119687X / ISBN 13: 9780571196876

Published by Faber & Faber, London, 1999

About this Item

322 pages + prelims. Dark green boards in jacket. Condition: The jacket is unclipped, showing the printed price £16.99. The book is clean and unmarked with the full number string on the copyright page. Every book is sent in a rigid cardboard posting box. Size: 22.5 cm x 14 Cm.

Seller Inventory # 11335F

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When They Lay Bare
• Publisher: Faber & Faber, London
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 057119687X
• ISBN 13: 9780571196876
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: First Edition, 1st Printing.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

Spied on by the factor of an estate in the Scottish Borders, an unknown woman enters a cottage that has been empty since the violent deaths of its inhabitants more than 20 years ago. She has a set of antique plates which she believes can tell her the truth about the past and what she is to do now.

Review

When I Lay Bare is skilfully paced and unputdownable. Part thriller, part romance, it contains the promise of exceeding both these genres. At the very least, it breathes fresh life into a series of romantic clichés. A mysterious young woman moves into deserted Crawhill cottage on the estate of Sir Simon Elliot in the Borders. He fears she is the daughter of his mistress whom he loved passionately but may have murdered. What does the young woman want? Was her mother pushed or did she fall? Is she really Elliot's daughter? "If it wasn't the child, Sim wondered, who was she and what the hell was she doing moving into Crawhill? And if it was her, what had she came back for, why had she not come to see him? Instead she had taken up residence in the cottage and waited. What did the lassie want with Davy?"

The novel is, in a certain sense, the giving of flesh to a set of antique plates that the young woman brings with her. It moves perspectives continually and subtly. Sometimes the reader is inside the mind of Tat, the all-seeing spy of Elliot who may or may not have his own agenda; sometimes the perspective is that of Elliot or his son. Can the reader interpret the images on the plates more quickly and accurately than the characters? The overall effect is one of a vertiginous kaleidoscopic unfolding; the subtlety of the storytelling pushing hard against the kitsch of what is a truly gripping plot.--Neville Hoad