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Lumphanan Press:  Tarland, Scotland
2021 (pb)

Jo Buchanan is the head osteologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where she teaches, provides laboratory experiences for undergrads, mentors Ph.D. candidates, as well as analyzing and curating human remains. The Archaeology Department is located at the end of Infirmary Street by the High School Yards in the heart of Edinburgh, in a building steeped ion Scottish history and characters such as Sir Walter Scott.  Trained in both archaeology and osteology, her research focus since completing her dissertation on Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC) cremation practices in Slovenia as they pertained to ritual and burial.

Her tranquil academic existence takes a turn into unfamiliar territory when one of her students, Fianna McLeod, asks her a series of disturbing questions about her belief in God and spirits, and whereas Jo thinks of “bringing dead to life” metaphorically, Fianna may mean actually communing with the dead!  Fianna seems to have wandered into these musings after finding a human mandible lying on the surface of a grave south of East Linton.  Jo insists that Fianna must return the bone to the gravesite, which the student agrees to, but in leaving, still insists that Jo has a very special “gift.”

Churchyard skeletal remains seem to haunt Jo’s existence when Detective Sergeant Liam Campbell, cousin to Jo’s significant other, asks her to come to Divisional Police Headquarters to hopefully identify human teeth found by a young hoodlum apprehended by the police. During the visit, Campbell’s superior, Chief Constable Allander Casselbank, asks for Jo’s assistance in excavating a likely ancient burial found by a hiker in a rock shelter between Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano, and Salisbury Crags, a rocky slope, which are part of Holyrood Park, a spectacular natural backdrop to Edinburgh.

Jo reluctantly agrees to help the police, and an early morning expedition led by Sergeant Liam Campbell unearths partial remains of a large male—skull and long bones only—in context with a broadsword, possibly medieval or earlier, all of which are returned to Jo’s laboratory for further study.

In a hoped-for break from the macabre, Jo attends a lecture by her friend Carole Merchison, Curator of Medieval Manuscripts at the National Museum of Scotland.  The lecture marks the opening of a major exhibit featuring, among other artifacts, a lavishly appointed reliquary from the 9^th or 10^th centuries which contains manuscripts of early medieval Irish or Scots saints and Old Celtic charms used as amulets to ward off demons and other evil beings.  At the reception, Jo is cornered by the conspicuously creepy and cadaverous Graeme Erskine, who claims a close “relationship” with her student, Fianna McLeod.  Fianna, Erskine says, has told him of Jo’s ability to bring the deceased back to life—an enviable talent as Samhain approached and the “veil continues to thin.” Samhain (October 31-November1) marked the Celtic New Year and was associated with death, as the veil between the living and the dead was especially thin and allowed the dead to visit among the living.

Jo is very uneasy with the man’s bizarre prattling but is rescued by Carole’s timely offer to share a couple of pints, thus losing the strange encounter.  Even stranger episodes begin to pile up as the days grow shorter and Samhain draws closer.

Lobster fishermen from Dunbar snag a line of lobster creels—called lobster pots in the U.S.—containing disarticulated human remains.  Similarly, Jo and Callum, while taking a late-season boating excursion on the Firth of Forth—an estuary of the river Forth—off Inchcolm Island, find their anchor chain tangled with a lobster creel—also containing human skeletal body parts.  Apparently unrelated to the gruesome discoveries in the lobster creels, Carole informs Jo that the National Museum’s new exhibit had been burgled and that the ornamental box, or cumdach, along with the grimoire manuscript and the third spell, an incantation for the dead to break through from the Otherworld to assist the living, were stolen.  In yet another bizarre, but seemingly unrelated development, Jo’s return to her lab for further work on the Arthur’s Seat human remains result in a stunning discovery:  the body parts are modern, not ancient, as assumed from medieval weapon found in context!

With all these events swirling about, and Carole still distressed over the museum burglary, Jo convinces her friend they need to leave their anxieties behind for a few hours and join the parade and festivities of Samhain, which are vividly described by the author.

In tried-and-true gothic fiction fashion, Jo and Carole are separated and Jo is kidnaped and taken to Inchcolm Abbey, where all the events of the preceding days culminate in a most terrifying way.  The legends surrounding Samhain seem to be playing out in a particularly eldritch fashion in the shadow of the ancient abbey.

Author Jayne-Leigh Thomas deftly spins a tale of mystery and terror against a backdrop of informed detail concerning osteology and archaeology.  She received her Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Edinburgh, and most recently has worked as the Director of an archaeological and human rights project headquartered at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.  As a self-published work, Thinning of the Veil could have used the talents of a professional proofreader, but the relatively few examples of printing errors do not detract from this most satisfying thriller.  Three trowels for this first in the Jo Buchanan series of archaeology novels.