Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott (2017)

"Rotherwierd" is published by Jo Fletcher books (2017), from Great Britain. I picked it up primarily due to the artwork and lettering on the cover, which evoked "Bad Jelly the Witch" to me, a childhood book by Spike Milligan that scared me as a child. Childhood me was quite the wimp apparently. The cover and the artwork inside were enough for me to decide to read it, which suggests I am susceptible to advertising of this nature. The cover artwork is quaint and the  artwork inside the book, by Sasha Laika is abstract to figurative.

Anywho, the title of the book is the name of the town that is the setting of the book, ostensibly a town that during the Elizabethean period achieved its independence from external government on the condition that its citizenry do not examine or record their history, again for reasons. These reasons are a source of mystery throughout the story and contribute to the quaint English absurdity of the town and its citizens. It's the kind of absurdity that the English like to package and sell to tourists and tell stories to and about themselves about how charming they are, the mad dogs and Englishmen bit. Spike Milligan did this well, but the writing style is certainly not Spike Milligan and though the book is full of the dialogue of its citizens the absurdity is perhaps more part of an overall web, which is one of the points of the book. But it is sweet as books go.

The town and its citizenry are introduced by the journey of two groups of strangers to the town, a family of malevolent intent and a rather gormless history teacher down on his luck. Through them the reader transitions from a recognizable modern setting to the isolated, hard to find mysterious town of Rotherwierd with its absurd laws outlawing the study of history and its unusually gifted citizens and institutions who tend towards an empirical positivist outlook.

It is in many ways a detective novel, as most of the major characters are all doing kinds of detecting of the history, mysteries and prominent sites and artifacts of the town and it features puzzels and just enough latin for you to grab that dictionary you never use. I mean, its not Suduko, thank god, but it does feature moments or set pieces where you recognize the intent of the author and convergence of the various stories. It is sweet and whimsical.

Apparently there is a second book in the works, "WYNTETIDE" (2018) as advertised on page 453 and the author does go to some trouble to explain his experience of writing this book.