BOG QUEEN

An American anthropologist in northern England becomes entangled in emotional and literal quagmires after identifying an ancient body in a bog.

Agnes has a way with people—but only if they’re dead. A gifted student, she graduated from high school early and powered through university and doctoral studies to become a forensic anthropologist. Feeling oppressed by her doting father’s omnipresence and a too-comfortable boyfriend, Agnes decides to take a postdoc position in Manchester. She is called in to assist with the identification of what authorities believe is a murder victim killed by her husband in 1961 and buried in a peat bog, but Agnes immediately sees, and soon confirms, that this is a body older than any she (or, for that matter, almost anyone) has ever unearthed. In the novel’s first narrative track, Agnes attempts to conduct an excavation at the bog, caught in a web of conflicting interests that includes the peat company, the press, the niece of the still-undiscovered murder victim, a bioarchaeologist and her precocious teen daughter, and a group of environmental activists intent on rewilding the peat. The book’s second narrative belongs to “the druid of Bereda,” a Celtic priest from ancient Europe who navigates her diplomatic and spiritual duties during the fraught beginnings of the Roman Empire’s expansion. (The moss narrates briefly, too.) North’s previous novel, Outlawed (2021), turned the Western genre on its head, and here she tackles historical fiction, swinging for the fences by taking on an ancient culture (and one that largely lacks written records). Perhaps it’s inevitable that the character of Agnes cannot help but be less magnetic than the regal druid. Nevertheless, this is a memorable tale of the unexpected linkages of history, land, and female power.

North widens her range with this layered mystery-meets-ancient-history mashup.