** spoiler alert ** What can I say about Three Graves Full. It's an unusual take on a murder/crime book, that's for sure.
Jason Getty has lived for nearly two years with a dead body in his back garden, one he planted there himself. Living with that knowledge isn't easy for Jason as he is, in a word, a Wimp. He is the epitome of the word Wimp. He's got no back-bone, he doesn't know how to stand up for himself and the one time that he really does lose it, he kills someone. To be fair he was pushed and bullied but murder is murder and now he has to live with it.
After planting the body he tries to get on with life but there's that voice at the back of his head that keeps nattering at him. It wakes him up at night, gasping for air. It has him looking in the mirror to see if he's changed. But he hasn't, he's still a Wimp.
Deciding that he should at least tidy up the front garden so the neighbours don't complain, well it's been nearly two years since he did anything, seems like an easy task especially as he gets a contractor to do it. The knock on the door and the conversation with the gardener telling him they've found something isn't. Neither is the phone call and the following interviews with Detective Bayard. It would seem that Jason wasn't the only person to commit murder in the property. There's two graves at the front of the property and he had been none the wiser.
Leah knew that Reid was a cheat, she always knew and he always came back. When he ran away a few weeks before their wedding, three years ago, she knew something had happened but not what. Now she has been told where he's been all these years, she just wants to see, to get some closure. What she gets is nearly killed. Some things should be left alone.
Boyd just wants to get away, now that the bodies of his wife and her lover have been discovered. After pretending to be his dead twin Bart for a couple of years he thought he'd just get a slap on the wrist for cashing his welfare cheques so when the police try to arrest him he does a runner. His first stop is his old house to see if his old neighbour can help him.
The three of them converge on Jason's back garden that night and a strange evening of events occur. Jason's trying to dig up his body in the back yard before Bayard can get the cadaver dogs, Leah is drawn to the lights that he's using and ends up getting her head bashed with a shovel when all she wanted to do was say goodbye to Reid and Bart was drawn to the mewling sound coming from the rotten smelling tarp.
From there its a mad, crazy night for all of them. Poor Jason hasn't got a clue what to do now, his window for moving the body and making a getaway are closing, Bart thinks he's killed a police officer who has shown up to make sure Leah is ok and Leah is just joining the dots and getting Jason to help her to save the police office.
Jamie Mason has written Jason Getty so well that you can just picture a bland and boring human being with doormat written all over him. His efforts to stand up for himself and the ensuing chaos are morbidly funny and the fact that Leah helps him out at the end, by tying up all the loose ends into a conceivable story, are just as much a part of his inability to think for himself and to stand up for himself.
I shall definitely be on the look-out for more of Jamie Mason's books and I would definitely recommend it to anyone, no matter what genre they like to read.
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