Fun takes on genre fiction can be simply delightful. Fantasy but X, sci-fi but Y: pairings like this offer unique settings and rulesets for author and reader to get entangled in. So is the case with Three Bags Full, a crime story focusing on a flock of sheep who try to figure out who is responsible for the death of their shepherd.
Fluffy mysteries all around
In a sleepy Irish village, lonely shepherd George Glenn tends to a very unusual flock. From smartypants to philosophers, raging rams with mysterious pasts and cloud-loving thinkers, these are the perfect sheep to have if you want to figure out a human homicide.
With the first chapter, titled Othello Boldly Grazes Past, the story begins thus:
“‘He was healthy yesterday,’ said Maude. Her ears twitched nervously.
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ pointed out Sir Ritchfield, the oldest ram in the flock. ‘He didn’t die of an illness. Spades are not an illness.’”
And with this astute observation, the story sets off in earnest.
Of course, the village is not as sleepy as it looks. Armed with a very limited understanding of human nature and psychology, the sheep embark on a hilarious adventure where they hop from misunderstanding to misunderstanding, still inadvertently pushing the plot along. Around them, the human cast tells a story of an almost Scandinavian crime-like slow burner of a saga with surprisingly high stakes considering the sleepy setting. As the sheep have no idea what is truly going on, the humans also can’t fathom (or expect) that the flock is an active participant in the events that transpire. It’s a comedy of errors, full of dramatic irony, and a delightful bit of fun.
It is also an impressive authorial tightrope walk, layering the story in a way where no one is working with full information until the very end, and it’s the reader who actually has the most of the cards throughout—though not enough to fully piece together what was going on until the very end.
Baa-nal? Not at all
That said, if you are looking for action in your fiction, you have come to the wrong place. (It is a book about sheep solving their shepherd’s murder, so what were you expecting?) But if you enjoy the classic “small town where everyone has secrets” setting, especially featuring the British countryside—think Broadchurch but fun—then this slow burn of a bleat comes highly, highly recommended.
Anthea Bell’s translation does a great job of maintaining the tone, despite the obvious differences in linguistic function between the original German prose and its English reimagining. The change of the original title—Glennkill, which is perhaps a bit too on the nose, even though it also refers to the name of the village where the story takes place—is an acceptable sacrifice, too, considering how it lines up better with the follow-up book’s variant on the theme.
Photo by Destructoid
Yes, if you want a second helping, you’re in luck: The book’s sequel, titled Big Bad Wool in English, has finally been translated this summer, sixteen years after the original. While it’s more on the thriller side of things rather than mystery, it is still advertised as “a sheep detective story,” so caveat emptor on that one. That one is on my to-read list right now, so expect me to revisit Miss Maple and co. at some point later in the year.
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