The Tainted Isle is Dan Weatherer’s first full length novel and as such I think the way he’s gone about this is really quite clever.
Understanding his own limits and experience levels, he has crafted a novel by setting out the chapters like short stories. Within each, our main character Solomon Whyte, tells of his experiences of certain cases during his time as a paranormal investigator and also in between these we learn about the character’s own life, family and back story.
What I really enjoyed about this book is that each of the cases is actually part of UK Folklore, so it’s unusual stories I was already partly familiar with, with this character interjected. A very clever way to keep these stories alive.
Now, other reviewers have picked up on the fact that Whyte doesn’t exactly solve some of these cases, I have an argument for this and whilst I can see it from that perspective I’d like to share my view; I feel that if you were constructing a book of interesting stories, you might choose those that seemed the strangest rather than those which make you look the most successful. It really depends on what you’re looking to achieve from the book. Perhaps you don’t see the straightforward cases that you’ve been able to fix completely as particularly interesting. That’s just my spin on it.
I enjoyed the book, I think the format and concept is great, and with further Whyte adventures it can only improve. Weatherer writes this book with a similar Gentlemanly tone of which I’ve mentioned in reviews of both Lex H Jones and M R James so I’m very excited to explore more of Weatherer’s work.
Rebbie Reviews 