Belinda Bauer is a British crime author with a reputation for writing high quality mysteries driven by unique ideas. This is why her past novels Blacklands (2009), Rubbernecker (2013) and Snap (2018) won four major awards between them, with the latter longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. After four years away, Bauer is back with The Impossible Thing, a convincing, atmospheric page turner that weaves together two crime stories a century apart. Will it make this year’s award nominations? Well that is not an impossible thing. It seems likely.
The story begins when 20-something gamer Nick and his terrified mother are robbed in their cottage, in a South Wales village near the Brecon Beacons. The only thing the balaclava-clad assailant takes is an old red egg in a carved wooden box, which Nick was trying to sell on eBay.
It’s Patrick who finds them and eventually gets help, but the police aren’t too interested. Like Nick, Patrick is a bit of a loner. He’s also neurodivergent and as you read you’ll get to understand his coping mechanisms – a little like Kalmann in Joachim B Schmidt‘s Icelandic novels, with a bit less violence all round.
Then we’re off to the other side of Britain and back in time. It’s 1920, Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, where that egg came from. The chalk cliffs are home to colonies of puffins and guillemots. There is a growing fascination with wild bird eggs across Britain, with eccentric rich men bidding increasing amounts of money on rare and spectacular eggs. As a result, men and boys shimmy up and down the rock face stealing eggs from under the squawking seabirds. Whole crews from the local farming community are employed in the business. The booty is sold to men like George Ambler, a gentleman from London who styles himself as an egg agent.
At one of the farms abutting the cliffs lives Celie Sheppard. Tiny, malnourished, she’s unwanted by her mother Enid, who struggles to keep the farm running and the rent paid. Celie’s older brothers work the land with Robert, a boy who lives in the barn. He can’t read or write, but he’s in tune with everything that happens on the farm. Celie is his constant companion, and it’s he who lowers her down through a crevice on the cliff to retrieve a guillemot egg from a ledge none of the men can reach.
When she comes up with a red egg, Ambler must have it. He’ll get a pretty penny for it from a collector in London. However, when he tries to lowball the six-year-old, neighbouring farmer Jim Chandler makes sure the bargain is much more favourable to the child. She and Robert go home with a bucket of egg slop – because the eggs are blown right there on the cliff before they can go off – and enough money to impress Enid.
Soon, Celie is gathering a red egg from the same guillemot nest for Ambler twice a year and her family’s fortunes have turned thanks to the income the eggs bring.
Normally, guillemot eggs are blue-ish, green-ish, beige-ish and full of flecks and squiggles. A red one is extremely rare, but a bird laying reds will do so throughout its adult life.
Back in the present day, Nick and Patrick set off on a mission to retrieve the stolen egg and get tied up in the world of illegal egg collecting. Their ineptness brings humour and intrigue to the story in equal measure, but with Nick’s gung-ho attitude and Patrick’s unique perspective on things, they actually start making breakthroughs. They attend the trial of a man involved in egg trafficking, encounter violent egg thieves and deal with the RSPB and the curator of an egg collection held by a museum.
On the one hand, you be hooked into a contemporary egg hunt, while on the other seeing how the lives of Celie and her family are changed thanks to her egg stealing ability from the 1920s and into the 30s. At times, the writing is reminiscent of Charles Dickens; wealth and poverty in contrast, conniving and benevolent characters at odds, everyone constrained by their social class.
There is a lightness in the tone that belies the depth of the story. Bauer brings every character to life – the greedy and uncompromising George Ambler; Celie, who is confused by her feelings both about stealing eggs and towards Robert; Enid Sheppard with her stresses and secrets; and Patrick, who in his own way contemplates what it actually means to take an egg out of nature; bullied Nick who finds his courage.
The premise is based in fact. Owning a wild bird egg is illegal in the UK, and has been since the 1950s. And the legendary Bempton red guillemot eggs really did exist.
What’s even more fascinating is the way Belinda Bauer weaves everything together into a story that offers crime and mystery, family drama, romance, tragedy and a buddy story. Every scene, every layer is engrossing. We are taken from the wild cliffs to stuffy gentlemen’s clubs in London to council estates and the hidden back rooms of a natural history museum. Slowly, the dots are connected between George Ambler’s egg collection and the one Nick inherited. This book is so good you won’t want to put it down, and when you’re finished you’ll wish you could spend more time with Celie, Robert, Nick and Patrick.
A beautiful, beautiful piece of writing. Perfect for Easter, perhaps?
Atlantic Press
Print/Kindle/iBook
$27.00
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
