The Black Country

Travel Guide

The Victorian period  was certainly not the faint hearted as you will see from the nature of the cases in this novel! There are more than one or two gruesome scenes which might well turn your stomach.
The setting itself is an interesting one since it is a small pit mining village which is built above the mines it is known for. Needless to say that the ground is prone to weaknesses and some of the houses and buildings are literally sinking into it. Add to this, a strange sort of sickness that seems to be gradually spreading from one person to another and it’s not the place that you would care to stay for long.
Once the police arrive, they find themselves isolated and unwelcome – a cloud of suspicion seems to follow them as no one in the village wants to talk to them or are happy that they are there at all. The sense of unease and the closed community are evoked well.

Day smiled and looked past the station to the snowy field and  far beyond it, the pit mounds, the huge tanks of steaming wastewater, the tiny engine houses, and the iced-over stream that wound past them all.

There is also a thread throughout of a fictional monster known as ‘Rawhead’ is a belief held strongly by those in the village – an evil that lives in the woods nearby. Evokes a strong sense of identity, belief system, way of thinking and also a strange black cloud which permeates everything in its path.