Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason – review

This debut from Pushkin's new imprint is a darkly comic murder story with plenty of snap

• 
• • John Self
  • The Guardian, Saturday 9 November 2013

'Was it deep enough?' … Jason Getty worries about the back-garden burial of the man he killed. Photograph: Alamy

Three Graves Full is a double debut: the  first novel by Jamie Mason, and the first published by ONE, the new one-title-per-season imprint of Pushkin Press. Instantly, it shows a more commercial approach than Pushkin's main list, which since 1997 has been prising gems from places no one else was looking. This is clear enough from the sparky title, and from the opening line: "There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard." Both suggest – and they are right – that this is a cheerful murder story, with plenty of snap

The man with the buried body is Jason Getty, a widower living in a US state – perhaps Oklahoma – with only a secret to keep him company. Eighteen months previously, he "found himself the puppet of a howling primal rage" and killed a man, and has spent the time since then "crunching antacids". He worries about the interment: "Was it deep enough? He didn't know – he wasn't a gravedigger. Then again, in his mind he wasn't a murderer, either, but facts are facts." Before we can find out how Jason got here, Mason sets off in another direction as Jason's gardeners, landscaping his grounds to settle his paranoia over how the place has looked since his digging, uncover another two bodies he knew nothing about.
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