Penzler Pick, August 2000: Val McDermid, better known in England than in the U.S., is a well respected writer of crime fiction. Her three ongoing mystery series feature red-haired PI Kate Brannigan; Lindsay Gordon, a lesbian socialist journalist, and Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, clinical psychologist and detective inspector respectively. A Place of Execution is McDermid's first stand-alone mystery, and with it, she redefines the term "village mystery."

It is 1963, the Beatles are becoming wildly popular in England, and the Swinging Sixties are about to change the post-war Western world. But in the village of Scardale in the Peaks District of Derbyshire, a desolate area beloved of hikers and climbers, nothing has changed for hundreds of years. The village has remained small and insular--most villagers are related, and the most common second names are Carter and Lomas. When Alison Carter, aged 13, disappears while walking her dog, the case is given to a young detective inspector named George Bennett. As Bennett gets to know the families in the village and their concerns, he realizes that this case is not as simple as it first seems. The villagers seem to be closing ranks, and Bennett suspects they may be protecting one of their own. Central to his investigation are Alison's mother and her husband. When Ruth Carter remarried, she chose Philip Hawkin, an outsider who is now the current squire of the village. As Alison's stepfather, he raises all kinds of red flags for Bennett. But so does Alison's close relationship with her cousin Charlie who, too conveniently, it seems, finds a vital clue.

All this is complicated by the fact that the police and the villagers cannot find Alison's body; there are also other disappearances in the area which may or may not be connected. To reveal more about this riveting mystery would be to give too much away. McDermid takes the reader through a maze of conflicting facts and theories, and when Bennett, with the help of local police, solves the case, the real story is only just beginning--especially for Bennett, who will question not only his own part in solving this case, but ultimately the profession he has chosen. --Otto Penzler


From Publishers Weekly
This superb novel should make Gold Dagger-nominee McDermid's reputation and bring her new readers in droves. It's December 1963 and teenage girls all over Britain are swooning to the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand." In the tiny, remote village of Scardale, Derbyshire, 13-year-old Alison Carter is envied by her peers because her stepfather buys her all the latest records. When Alison goes missing one dark night, Dist. Insp. George Bennett takes control of the case, despite being new to the job and the district. Other children have gone missing recently from towns and cities in the north, but somehow Alison's case is different. Although the police feverishly track down clues and organize searches over the moors, any hope that they'll find the girl fades as the days go by. Obsessed by the case, George is tormented by his lack of success and by the suffering of Alison's mother. Little more can be said without giving away key plot points, but McDermid spins a haunting tale whose complexity never masks her adroitness at creating memorable characters and scenes. Her narrative spell is such that the reader is immersed immediately in the rural Britain of the early '60s. She clearly did extensive research on how police work was done at the time, and it has paid off beautifully. The format of the novel is unusual, with much of it purporting to be a true crime book, but McDermid keeps the suspense taut, and her pacing never flags. This is an extraordinary achievement, and it's sure to be on many lists of the best mysteries of the year. 10-city author tour. (Sept. 20) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Atlantic Monthly
"A novel about a murder in which the police find the culprit but not the body--a circumstance rich in the stuff of which page turners are made...McDermid...generates curiousity and, finally, whiplash surprise."


From AudioFile
A landowner in an isolated English hamlet is hanged for the rape and murder of his 13-year-old stepdaughter. Thirty years later a journalist revisits the case with startling results. Essentially two books in one, the story has the expository nature of a police procedural and the gossipiness of a village "cozy" underlaid by sordid goings-on and the desire for revenge. Although Paddy Glynn does an old woman to a T, she doesn't give individual voice to the several well-rounded male characters. Rather, she uses her perfect diction and clear voice to carry the listener to the conclusion, where the saying "it takes a village" gets a whole new meaning. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Readers will be reminded of the real-life Moors Murders and of Stephen King's fictive eerie-village tales as they make their way through this compelling, funhouse-mirror mystery. McDermid turns the English village cozy on its head as she presents Scardale, a village whose hard-bitten inhabitants try to keep the world out and their secrets in. Part of the mystery is set in the '60s, when several children disappeared and were later found murdered in nearby Manchester. The stepdaughter of Scardale's leading citizen goes missing next. The local police investigating the disappearance are met with byzantine resistance from the villagers at every turn. The mystery deepens throughout, even extending, with a shocking ending, 30 years into the future. McDermid, who won the British Gold Dagger Award in 1995 for Mermaid Singing, brings some cunning new twists to the psychological-suspense genre. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"One of the most ingenious mystery novels ever."--Newsday

"Inventivly conceived and wonderfully written...A marvel from start to finish."--Wall Street Journal

"Val McDemid's best work to date."--Times Literary Supplement



Review
"One of the most ingenious mystery novels ever."--Newsday

"Inventivly conceived and wonderfully written...A marvel from start to finish."--Wall Street Journal

"Val McDemid's best work to date."--Times Literary Supplement



Book Description
Winter 1963: two children have disappeared off the streets of Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezlng day in December, another child goes missing: thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from her town, an insular community that distrusts the outside world. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, 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 anonymity of the inner city, and an outcome which reverberates through the years.

Decades later he finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication, Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information which he refuses to divulge, new information that threatens the very foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to re-investigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down.

A Greek tragedy in modern England, A Place of Execution is a taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know.



About the Author
Val McDermid lives in Great Britain.

FROM OUR EDITORS

A 2001 EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL

The Barnes & Noble Review
To put the matter simply, veteran crime writer Val McDermid's latest novel, A Place of Execution, is an astonishing piece of work: suspenseful, moving, evocative, and filled with unexpected twists and turns. Not surprisingly, it was a finalist for the British Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award as Best Novel of 1999. Its American incarnation seems poised to repeat that success and should become a primary contender for all of the mystery field's major awards.

The bulk of the narrative takes place in 1963 and is set against the bleak, inhospitable Derbyshire countryside. The story begins with the disappearance of 30-year-old Alison Carter, who vanishes without a trace while walking her dog on the moors outside her isolated village of Scardale. Alison's disappearance triggers a protracted, painstakingly detailed investigation that affects the lives of literally dozens of people. Included among them are Alison's distraught mother; her remote, self-absorbed stepfather; her xenophobic Scardale neighbors; and a decent, dogged police inspector named George Bennett, whose determination to unravel the mystery develops into a personal crusade that will color the remainder of his life.

For weeks on end, the investigation goes nowhere. And though the few available clues indicate probable foul play, Alison's body is never found. Eventually, despite the absence of a body, investigators unearth an incriminating cache of physical evidence, identify a particularly loathsome culprit, and successfully prosecute him for murder. Most suspense novels would end at this point, but McDermid has a whole new set of surprises in reserve.

Moving her narrative forward almost 35 years, she takes us into the distant aftermath of the crime and into the life of Catherine Heathcote, the investigative journalist whose re-creation of the Alison Carter case constitutes the first 300 pages of this novel. The final section recounts the unexpected revelations that Catherine -- in conjunction with the now retired George Bennett -- gradually uncovers. These revelations cast the events of 1963 in a startling new light, transforming a straightforward tale of murder and its consequences into a wholly original account of conspiracy, sexual misconduct, and carefully calculated revenge.

McDermid's novel really is, in that overworked phrase, a tour de force. Even its reliance on a single, massive coincidence seems somehow justified and lends the narrative the emotional resonance of classical Greek tragedy. A Place of Execution is, throughout, an intelligently constructed, masterfully sustained performance and deserves the attention of discerning readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

--Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has just been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

On a freezing day in December 1963, thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from her village. Nothing will ever be the same again for the inhabitants of the isolated hamlet in the English countryside. A young George Bennett, a newly-promoted inspector, he is determined to solve this case—even if it just to bring home a daughter's dead body to her mother.

As days progress, the likelihood that Alison has been murdered increases when a gruesome discovery is made in a cave. But with no corpse, the barest of clues, and an investigation that turns up more questions than answers, Bennett finds himself up against a stone wall...until he learns the shocking truth—a truth that will have far-reaching consequences.

Decades later, Bennett finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote. But just when the book is posed for publication, he pulls the plug on it without explanation. He has new information that he will not divulge. Refusing to let the past remain a mystery, Catherine sets out to uncover what really happened to Alison Carter. But the secret is one she might wish she'd left buried on that cold, dark day thirty-five years ago.

FROM THE CRITICS

Toby Bromberg - Romantic Times

Val McDermid has created a novel so intense and vivid that the reader suspends her own reality and enters the world of Scardale in 1963. The story is tightly told with characters so memorable that they become part of our life. A brilliantly logical denouement stuns and shatters us, making this a most remarkable reading experience.

The Wall Street Journal

Masterly....Inventively conceived and wonderfully written, A Place of Execution is a marvel from start to finish.

New York Times Book Review

Val McDermid's elegiac study of a henious crime and its aftermath, is very much in the (P.D.) Jamesian mode, both in its inventive use of devices of detection and its mournful view of murder as a moral reckoning.

Publishers Weekly

This superb novel should make Gold Dagger-nominee McDermid's reputation and bring her new readers in droves. It's December 1963 and teenage girls all over Britain are swooning to the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand." In the tiny, remote village of Scardale, Derbyshire, 13-year-old Alison Carter is envied by her peers because her stepfather buys her all the latest records. When Alison goes missing one dark night, Dist. Insp. George Bennett takes control of the case, despite being new to the job and the district. Other children have gone missing recently from towns and cities in the north, but somehow Alison's case is different. Although the police feverishly track down clues and organize searches over the moors, any hope that they'll find the girl fades as the days go by. Obsessed by the case, George is tormented by his lack of success and by the suffering of Alison's mother. Little more can be said without giving away key plot points, but McDermid spins a haunting tale whose complexity never masks her adroitness at creating memorable characters and scenes. Her narrative spell is such that the reader is immersed immediately in the rural Britain of the early '60s. She clearly did extensive research on how police work was done at the time, and it has paid off beautifully. The format of the novel is unusual, with much of it purporting to be a true crime book, but McDermid keeps the suspense taut, and her pacing never flags. This is an extraordinary achievement, and it's sure to be on many lists of the best mysteries of the year. 10-city author tour. (Sept. 20) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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