 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Havoc in its Third Year
By Ronan Bennett
Bloomsbury
$29.95
 From its opening quote from Goethe - 'Mistrust all in whom the desire to punish is imperative' - to the death throes of the central character, coroner John Brigge, this is anything but a cheery book. Perfect for our times, then.
Poverty, conflict and pestilence stalk the land, with religious bigotry and the abuse of power holding sway. As he did in The Catastrophist, his acclaimed, equally bleak novel set in the 1960s Belgian Congo, noted Irish writer Ronan Bennett has penned a morality tale about political chaos, recounting it in an acceptably comprehensible version of the language of the day.
It is northern England in the early 17th century and Brigge, a Catholic in a hostile Protestant land, is savouring his wife Elizabeth's pregnancy, despite evident problems.
When he is summoned to the nearby town for an autopsy he leaves with an ominous premonition.
'What was God's plan for him? He looked ceaselessly for signs and struggled with their meanings - a robin's return to a branch, the bud of a wildflower where none had grown before, the appearance of a strange dog with a walled blue eye. Signs might be hidden and hard to discern, and sometimes they are obvious and overlooked for trifles.'
The case he will investigate is the alleged killing of a baby by a woman 'out of Ireland' named Katherine Shay, whom the authorities, shadowy in the manner of Kafka, maintain is 'not sorrowful in the least, but prideful and very brazen and uncontrite.'
Brigge is 'filled up with loathing and revulsion for Katherine Shay' and his examination of the baby's body and subsequent interrogation of Shay in the bleak sessions hall is a grim affair.
But all is not as it seems and Brigge is soon embroiled in a power play between the town's 'Master', Nathaniel Challoner, and his rival, the former leader, Lord Savile, whose dark forces are gathering.
Keen to see justice done, Brigge investigates the Shay case, now convinced of her innocence, but the explosive situation erupts and accompanied by Elizabeth and their new son Samuel he must flee into the ravaged, hostile countryside. There, with a group of bedraggled pilgrims, including the shackled Shay, he realises that heaven, to where Elizabeth has now departed, will be his next stop.
It seems the real John Brigge was less worthy, for as the author explains, a man of this name 'performed inquisitions' in Yorkshire in the mid 1600s, the records of which he found in gaol archives.
- Books reviewed are available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore.
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