A Place of Execution

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Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in Britain; she met her maker on 13 July 1955, found guilty of murdering her boyfriend, shooting him five times with a revolver after he had refused to meet her over the Easter holidays. Scardale is an insular community that doesn't like cops, and the police have a hard time squeezing information out of the residents. Since many have written synopsis of the plot, I will tell what I liked about the book and what I didn't care much for. A Place of Execution is a stand-alone book, not one of the Hill/Jordan series. This police procedural and psychological thriller is character-driven with an intricately woven plot from beginning to end. The Case of the Missing Conservatories'' is what lively and likeable Kate Brannigan, the English detective from Manchester introduced in Dead Beat , calls this, her second adventure, which founders Continue reading »

As a rather large city, London required several places of execution, prior of course to convicts and felons being deported first to America and then to Australia. I would read a chapter, then rest my aging eyes as I usually do, but instead of returning to the story, I would put it off; I read two other books between the time I started A PLACE OF EXECUTION and the time I completed it. The first 40% of the novel was extremely boring. DI George Bennett drives into the small hamlet where a 13-year-old girl has gone missing, collects information and drives home. Next day he drives in again, generally accompanied by DS Tommy Clough, collects more information and drives home again — repeatedly, as Bennett builds up a picture of a unique place and its inhabitants, finally discovering the clues needed to identify a suspect and the proof to charge him. Over and over, on each trip, just a few pieces of data are gathered.

A young girl disappeared from her village 45 years earlier and was never found. Her stepfather was convicted of murdering her and hanged, after her blood was found on his shirt and in a cave, and pornographic photographs of him molesting her were discovered. I see, sir,' Swindells said cautiously. While the information didn't exactly change anything, it did make the policeman slightly wary, conscious that Scardale was off his beat in more ways than the obvious. Scardale wasn't just a different world from the bustling market town where Swindells lived and worked; it had the reputation of being a law unto itself. For such a call to come from Scardale, something well out of the ordinary must have happened. He insists that Heathcote withdraw the book from publication, but offers no specific reasons. Bennett even offers to repay the entire advance himself. Once the most notorious prison in London, Newgate was commissioned in the 12th century by King Henry II and remained in use all the way through to 1902.

drawing to the place of execution on a hurdle. Additional barricades were erected to keep the expected large crowds of And sometimes, they seemed to vanish as cleanly as if the earth had opened up and gulped them down. Phillip Hawkin, the newly arrived Squire of Scardale, having married into the web of that particular village, was a man destined for destruction. Not only will his revealed secrets disgust most readers, the way in which he eventually becomes his own worst enemy will leave you breathless. This is one of those rare reading events that linger in your mind and haunt you for days. Every now and then, a writer transforms the landscape of the literary canon: Val McDermid is one such writer' Fiona Cummins, bestselling author of Rattle

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Part of my 2019 "returning to old favourites" I'd forgotten just how utterly clever, compelling and brilliantly plotted this was. The book is absorbing and suspenseful, and Val McDermid does an excellent job evoking the feel of a rural hamlet that's heavily inbred. A basic menu of physical characteristics is scattered among the residents, who have little ambition beyond working their land and taking care of their animals. Lacy, Ann (2010). Frontier Stories: A New Mexico Federal Writers' Project Book. Sunstone Press. pp.87–88. ISBN 978-0865347335.