by ValMcDermid (Author)
Riveting psycholgical thriller from Gold Dagger Award Winning author: 'Compelling and atmospheric...a tour de force' -- MINETTE WALTERS Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale. For the young George Bennett it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the inner city; an outcome that reverberates down the years. Decades later he tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when her book is poised for publication, Bennett tries to pull the plug. He has new information that he will not divulge, and that threatens the very foundation of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multilayered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know...
Format: Paperback
Pages: 560
Edition: New edition
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 07 Oct 2002
ISBN 10: 0006512631
ISBN 13: 9780006512639
Prizes: Shortlisted for CWA Gold Dagger for Fiction 1999.
'From the first pages, we know we're in the hands of a master this book will earn its author a place in that rare pantheon - the truly literary suspense novel' Jeffrey Deaver
`Beautifully written ... It may be that McDermid will write better novels than this in the future, but I do not see how' Daily Telegraph
'One of the best detective stories I've read' Ruth Rendell
`A substantial book and an impressive one, possibly the best McDermid has written and it takes this most accomplished writer into higher territory' Sunday Telegraph
'A Place of Execution is a wake-up call to crime writers everywhere. A terrific and original novel, brilliantly executed' Mirror
Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three years as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. Now a full-time writer, she divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland. Her novels have won international acclaim and a number of prestigious awards, including the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year, the Anthony Award for best novel, and the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award. Her thriller series featuring criminal profiler Tony Hill has been adapted into the much-loved TV series Wire in the Blood.