A Place of Execution

Book excerpt: A Greek tragedy in modern England, Val McDermid's 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 expectation on its head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know. On a freezing day in December 1963, Alison Carter vanishes from her rural village, 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 suspected 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 that reverberates through the years. Decades later Bennett finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication, he unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information that he refuses to divulge, new information which threatens the very foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A Place of Execution is winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel.