His Bloody Project: A Historical Thriller

Burnet’s decision to follow Roderick’s gruesome description of his crimes with the medical reports concerning Flora, Lachlan, and Donnie’s bodies is an important juxtaposition that underscores the difficulty in ascertaining exactly why Roderick carried out his crimes. The discrepancy between Roderick’s account of his crimes and the evidence presented in the medical reports is jarring and serves as the first irrefutable evidence that Roderick’s written account of events is not to be entirely trusted. The sexual nature of Flora’s injuries suggests that Roderick’s testimony was purposefully constructed to mislead readers and invites new scrutiny on those portions of his account dealing with sex and sexuality.

Less dramatically, the medical report concerning Donnie Mackenzie calls Roderick’s account into further question, as it notes that “[t]he injury to [his] skull was most likely caused by a blow from a heavy blunt object” but “might also have been caused by a heavy fall on a hard surface” (139). As a result, the examiner “can only conjecture” (139) as to the precise cause of Donnie’s death. In concluding the three medical reports with this statement of ambiguity, Burnet reminds the reader of the novel’s interest in illustrating the elusive nature of definitive knowledge. The medical reports have already proved that Roderick most likely sexually assaulted Flora, but this ambivalence about the cause of Donnie’s death emphasizes that, in the end, there is no way to know what happened with any real certainty.