#BookReview ‘The Undiscovered Deaths Of Grace McGill’ by C.S Roberton

About the book…

Death is not the end.
For Grace McGill, it’s only the beginning.

When people die alone and undiscovered, it’s her job to clean up what’s left behind – whether it’s clutter, bodily remains or dark secrets.

When an old man lies undetected in his flat for months, it seems an unremarkable life and an unnoticed death. But Grace knows that everyone has a story and that all deaths mean something more.

A STAND-OUT NOVEL WITH A UNIQUE NARRATIVE VOICE AND AN UNGUESSABLE MYSTERY, YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO REMEMBER GRACE McGILL.

Hugest of thanks to the awesome publicity team at Hodder and Stoughton for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Undiscovered Deaths Of Grace McGill’, one of the most powerful novels I have read this year. Certainly with the most endearing and dogged heroine-she may be the last witness to the dead whose houses she cleans, but she will likely linger in the minds of all who read about her life.

She moves through her position in life with an acknowledgement of, but never a sense of pity about her isolation from main stream society.

In fact, it is her unique status as an outsider, who cleans the houses of the undiscovered dead, that affords the time and space to recognise patterns where others do not

Her meticulous eye for detail is replicated in mini dioramas that she makes of the scenes of death. She never includes the body, and has been very careful to make them specific, but not recognisable.

So when she notices a small,but crucial similarity between two deaths , she not only has to work out how to process it, but how to alert the proper authorities. And when the same detail pops up in a third death,it is time to step outside her comfort zone and be brave.

But how can she do this without bringing danger straight to her door?

What I loved about the book is not just Grace’s narrative voice, which takes you so close to the streets of Glasgow that you feel that you have visited there, but the pervasive sense of mystery.

There is a darkness and depth to the job which Grace does, but it is the society that has left these people to literally vanish in plain sight until an unavoidable consequence-olfactory assaults, leaking bodily fluids, unpaid bills and so forth-alerts the moving world to its static inhabitant.

The sadness I felt at the notion you could die without ever leaving any impression in this world ,especially in Covid times, was tempered with the determination that Grace has to deliver dignity after death to each of her clients.

She has been left with an ungrateful, demanding, alcoholic father and a job in the shadows of what is generally considered a less than desirable position for a woman. However,her tenacity and ability to see outside the norm is a gift, and she is ruthless in her pursuit of the truth. It is impossible to forget her.

As an aside, I absolutely loved diving down a rabbit hole into the world of murder dioramas and how they were used to advance forensic science, it was fascinating and I have linked below to a site which discusses the concept of ‘Murder In A Nutshell’.

About the author…
During his 20-year career with a Scottish Sunday newspaper, Craig Robertson has interviewed three recent Prime Ministers; attended major stories including 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann; been pilloried on breakfast television, beaten Oprah Winfrey to a major scoop, been among the first to interview Susan Boyle, spent time on Death Row in the USA and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of India.

Links-http://craigrobertsonbooks.co.uk/

http://deathindiorama.com/

Twitter @CraigRobertson_ @HodderBooks