A Place Of Execution by Val McDermidMy dad (who reads two, maybe three books a week) told me that this was the best mystery he’d read in a long time. With an endorsement like that, who was I to argue? He tossed the book my way and in no time, I was hooked.tThe time is 1963 and the setting is one of the many things about this long, tangled thriller that enthralled me. Welcome to the fictitious English village of Scardale; a remote farming community with families so inter-related that by the time Alison Carter went missing, the very second she disappeared, every single man, woman and child of that tiny village knew exactly what had happened. Therein lies the conundrum that Detective Inspector George Bennett was enlisted to unravel. It nearly killed him.t“Like any teenager, she’d always found plenty to complain about. But now that she was about to lose it, this life suddenly seemed very desirable. Now at last she began to understand why her elderly relatives clung so tenaciously to every precious moment, even if it was riven with pain. However bad this life was, the alternative was infinitely worse…”tWith daily visits to the pub for a pint (or three) and the endless smoking; everyone in this complexly layered tale smokes and drinks with a vengeance adding an eerie tension to this fast-paced tale. In real life between July 1963 and October 1965 five children went missing and later four of them were discovered in shallow graves in Saddleworth Moor. These unfortunate murders were dubbed the Moors Murders and the world, for a brief time, became enthralled and at the same time horrified. Author McDermid takes this true life case and weaves her story into such a compelling tale of unanswered questions, piles of red herrings and an ending that will honestly knock the air out of even a seasoned mystery-lover. I couldn’t put it down.tPhillip 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. tBeing a beekeeper, I couldn’t help but notice the tangible as well as metaphoric relationships that each and every member of Scardale shared. They lived within their own self-created hive and once Squire Hawkin tried to destroy it; they retaliated in a way I found shocking. This novel is a story with-in a story, built around a terrible crime. tThe only thing missing and never really found is Alison Carter…
This book will stay with me for a long time. There's no easy way to describe how much I enjoyed reading it and how deep into the story I felt myself immersing. I read it slowly so as to savour each chapter.1998. Catherine Heathcote is a journalist writing a book about a 35-year-old mystery. She is hoping to persuade retired Chief Inspector George Bennett to open up about the case after a long silence.It's December 1963 and a mother frantically calls the police, reporting her thirteen-year-old daughter, Alison Carter missing. She has returned from school and then gone out for a walk with her dog. She hasn't come back since.This happens at a time when other children are going missing without any trace in nearby towns and villages. Fearing another similar case has fallen onto their patch, Detective Inspector George Bennett and Sergeant Tommy Clough go from Buxton police station to investigate this new case of a missing child in the tiny Hamlet of Scardale in Derbyshire.From the outset, the investigation proves to be very difficult, full of dead ends and dark corners. The people in this close-knit community, cut off from the rest of the world, act as if the police is their enemy instead of on their side and the landscape is so difficult to search that even this seems to be conspiring against them. The people interviewed won't let the police in on anything and they don't tell them what they need to know.As many, long, fruitless days of intensive searches pass, leads begin to dry and Alison Carter remains missing. George Bennett becomes obsessed with this mystery. Dead or alive he wants to return the girl to her mother. Where is Alison? What happened to her? Has she been kidnapped? Killed? Will he find her?In this book, all the different characters and sceneries are brought to life so vividly that as from the beginning, I felt part of the story. I could almost see the dale surrounding the hamlet of Scardale with its grey cottages and the village green, the pastures with the grazing sheep. I could almost feel the warmth in the kitchen of the manor house and the freezing cold, dull weather outside. It was as though I was there, a passive character observing, hearing, trying to work it all out and solve the mystery this brilliant author has set out before me as I turned one page after the other.Thank you Val McDermid for this GREAT mystery novel. Superbly written, I cannot recommend 'A Place of Execution' enough.
What do You think about A Place Of Execution (2001)?
My re-read of this novel confirmed that it deserves the four stars I originally gave it. I first read A Place of Execution when it was initially published in 1999. As I don't generally re-read crime fiction novels (I make an exception for the novels of Dorothy L Sayers!), I haven't re-visited it since. The advantage in re-reading the novel after such a long break is that I had forgotten a lot of details of the plot, so it almost felt like a first time read. There is no doubt that this is one of Val McDermid's strongest works. She evokes 1960s England in general and Derbyshire in particular most convincingly. This is achieved partly through details of behaviour (for example, pretty much every character smokes!) and descriptions of items such as clothing and motor vehicles. It is also achieved through the juxtaposition of the central mystery in the novel - the disappearance and presumed murder of a young girl in a Derbyshire village - with details of the real life disappearances of several children later known to be victims of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. (They committed the so-called Moors Murders). The plotting is strong and although it relies on some fairly major coincidences, that aspect of the novel doesn't feel forced. The characters are believable and memorable. There are also some things to think about once the reading is over: secrets and lies, truth and justice, the operation of the criminal justice system. Recommended for fans of contemporary crime fiction. However, this not a "cozy". It deals with some disturbing issues - (view spoiler)[ specifically child abuse (hide spoiler)]
—Kim
January 1, 2001January 9, 2015I'm sorry I didn't keep any comments from my original reading; I'd love to compare them. What I do know is that I liked the book even better, despite knowing the big twist. The greatest strength of the book is the earnest young detective doing his best to solve a heinous crime in 1963 without any preparation but his own sensitivity. Aces there. And although the book deals with repeated rape and sexual abuse of a minor, there is no titillation in it: all the reactions we see are from people horrified, shocked, and disgusted. Although grooming behavior wasn't identified as such then, that is how it is perceived.Personal copy
—Kaethe
Review: Val McDermid – A Place of ExecutionDecember 22, 2011 by Sarah | Edit When I gave Val McDermid’s The Retribution a somewhat lukewarm review recently, two fellow reviewers urged me to try instead A Place of Execution a standalone novel set in Derbyshire. I think two recommendations from people whose opinions I trust is enough to convince me, so I bought the book on Amazon and started reading it as soon as it arrived. What appealed to me was the background to the book. I grew up in south Manchester in the 1980s and the Moors murders were in the not so distant past. I remember a policeman coming to my school and, as teenagers do, we were egging him on to reveal gory details about past cases. However, when it came to the terrible killings by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley this policeman, who had been involved in the original murder investigation, said it had cast a shadow over his life. And in some ways I had been affected too, as when we would drive over the bleak Saddleworth Moor you couldn’t help think about the children still buried there.A Place of Execution has as one it’s protagonists a similar policeman who is investigating the disappearance of thirteen year old Alison Carter in 1963, only about twenty miles from the Manchester investigations. References to the Moors murders are kept to the minimum and when they do appear they are subtly made. This shows how strong a writer McDermid is, that she can create a context without labouring a point. The policeman is shown as an intelligent and conscientious man determined to bring the murderer to justice, whether or not the body of the missing girl is found. I found the blurb of the book slightly misleading, as it tells us that a modern-day journalist, Catherine Heathcote who is writing a book on the case, discovers a fresh lead. In fact this doesn’t occur until the final quarter of the book, with most of the novel concentrating on the original investigation. This isn’t a criticism, I enjoyed the main body of the book immensely, I just kept expecting the journalist to appear far earlier than she actually did.The conclusion of the novel is both interesting and entirely believable. The writer doesn’t shirk from difficult subjects, in this case child abuse, but I think these passages were written in a straightforward and non-sensational way. The sense of place is amazing, I could recognise many of the landmarks and was truly transported to the Derbyshire of the 1960s.
—Sarah
