The Bones In The Attic by Robert Barnard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After quite a serious read - Julio Cortazar's stories - I was in the mood for something very light and inconsequential, a literary trifle. Robert Barnard comes to the rescue in such moments. His "The Bones in the Attic" has delivered exactly what I needed - a fast and rather pleasant read that has not taxed my brain or affected my emotions.

Matt Harper, an ex-footballer (it is a British book so 'football' rightly refers to the sport where the ball is touched only by players' feet) and a local radio and TV celebrity buys a house in Leeds, where he finds the skeleton of a child in the attic. The police are notified, but being busy with more important, current cases, they just help Matt conduct his own investigation.

In a cosmically improbable coincidence it turns out that Matt was in the exact same area in Leeds at the exact time that the bones date to. He begins reminiscing the summer of '69, when he was seven years old and played football with a group of a bit older kids. It soon becomes clear that they are somehow connected with the case.

I envy Matt the ability of remembering faces and conversations from 30 years ago. I wish I remembered what happened this morning. I liked reading the book, but I do not think it is a particularly good one.

Two and a quarter stars.


View all my reviews