A Place of Execution

A riveting psychological thriller, now a major ITV drama, from the Number One bestselling Queen of crime fiction Val McDermid. In the Peak District village of Scarsdale, thirteen-year-old girls didn’t just run away. So when Alison Carter vanished in the winter of ’63, everyone knew it was a murder. Catherine Heathcote remembers the case well. A child herself when Alison vanished, decades on she still recalls the sense of fear as parents kept their children close, terrified of strangers. Now a journalist, she persuades DI George Bennett to speak of the hunt for Alison, the tantalizing leads and harrowing dead ends. But when a fresh lead emerges, Bennett tries to stop the story – plunging Catherine into a world of buried secrets and revelations. 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 reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down.A Greek tragedy in modern England, A Place of Execution is a taut psychological suspense thriller that uniquely 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. A monstrous tale of deception, the technique of the telling is the greatest deception of all.

Reviews of A Place of Execution

'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