Disturbing Gound is a murder
mystery set in the Welsh mining town Llancloudy.  Bianca Rhys is found dead in a pool of water in the center of
town.  The police say it was just an
accident, but Dr. Megan Banesto is suspicious. 
Bianca was one of her patients, suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia.  She knew her patient
well, and she could not imagine how Bianca could have fallen into the pool at
night, because Bianca was very scared of water and she never went out at
night.  Bianca has an injury on the back
of her head, but how could she have fallen backward into the water?  Megan carries her suspicions with her,
finding that no one else will take them seriously.  If she is right that Bianca was murdered, then who would want her
dead?

Megan herself is feeling rather
fragile.  She is recently divorced,
after having met and married an Italian after a holiday romance.  The marriage ended when she discovered her husband’s
infidelity, under circumstances that were especially likely to get the town
gossips’ going.  To make matters worse,
the policeman in charge of the case is her old boyfriend.  In Llancloudy, everyone knows everyone else,
and it is impossible to have a private life. 
Megan tries to re-establish a normal life for herself, but she becomes
obsessed with Bianca’s death.

The strength of Disturbing
Ground is in its portrait of small town life in a post-industrial Welsh
town.  Megan is an appealing character
as the town doctor struggling with her identity.  Furthermore, the book is unusual in making Bianca able to
understand ideas and notice patterns that others did not notice precisely
because she has schizophrenia.  Bianca’s
obsessions and fears in some ways make her a better observer than the police,
and it is rare for any book to portray schizophrenia as having any positive
consequences.

I found the ending of the book a
little disappointing — the killer turns out not to be the obvious suspect, but
the revelation of the murderer’s identity seems arbitrary.  The ending could have been rewritten to make
any number of characters turn out to be the culprit.  Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable read, skillfully written.

The unabridged audiobook is read by
Siriol Jenkins on 7 CDs.  She has a
Welsh lilt to her voice, which of course works very well here.  It is a subtle performance

Link: Disturbing Ground audiobook at W.F. Howes in the UK

© 2006 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on
philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Fiction, AudioBooks