There is something naturally comforting about mysteries that know exactly where they live. Dead on the Dolmen: An Oscar Tremont Mystery is rooted in a way that feels increasingly rare, and the soil it draws from is ancient, stony, and steeped in story. Brittany is not used as postcard scenery, but as lived-in geography. You can feel the damp in the air, the weight of centuries pressing beneath the grass; a sense that folklore hasn’t vanished so much as learned to wait.
At the heart of the novel is the Ankou, that skeletal ferryman of Breton
legend, rattling through the night on horse and cart, his scythe in hand.
Cameron is careful with this figure. He does not overexplain or modernize the
myth into something slick. Instead, he allows it to retain its strangeness, its
rural terror, and its ambiguity. The Dolmen itself becomes a locus of unease: a
place where history, superstition, and violence overlap. Stones remember. This
book understands that.
The narrative pairing of father and son, David and Rowan, serves as an
emotional crux. Their relationship feels unforced, lived-in, and quietly
affectionate. This is not a story that relies on melodrama to manufacture
stakes. The fear grows organically, seeded in concern, curiosity, and the
realization that something old may not be content to remain symbolic. When
Oscar Tremont enters, he does so not as a disruptive force but as an extension
of the novel’s temperament. An investigator of the strange and inexplicable,
yes, but one who listens as much interrogates.
This was my first encounter with Oscar Tremont, and what struck me most was his
restraint. In a genre sometimes populated by outsized personalities, Tremont
feels refreshingly human. Competent without arrogance, curious without
condescension. Trost resists any urge to turn him into a gimmick. Instead, our
Investigator becomes a lens, someone through whom the uncanny can be examined
without being diminished.
Stylistically, the prose is clean and unadorned. Sentences move easily,
inviting immersion rather than demanding attention. There is a British coziness
to the structure, recalling Midsomer Murders or Father Brown, yet filtered
through a continental sensibility that gives the book its European
verisimilitude. Dialogue is natural and unshowy … and the supporting cast of
village characters feel lightly sketched but authentic.
Perhaps most telling is the sense that the author cares. Trost writes like
someone invested not only in story, but in reader experience. There is an
openness, a conversational quality that extends beyond the text itself. This is
the kind of novel that encourages curiosity, not only about its mystery, but
about the folklore it draws from. You may find yourself pausing to look things
up, to wander down adjacent paths.
Dead on the Dolmen is not interested in reinventing the mystery genre. As an
alternative, it polishes well-worn stone until it shimmers. Atmospheric, the
novel reminds us that the most persistent horrors are rarely the ones that
announce themselves … but those that have been quietly occupying the landscape
all along.
