A Place of Execution: A Novel

Good story, but a flawed telling. Too many stilted conversations giving heavy-handed information that would have been better served through narrative. It's a classic case of telling instead of showing, but it's cloaked in characters' conversations--really annoying. The final third of the book is endlessly boring and needn't have been. There was no reason the plot couldn't have moved forward at a quicker pace. I completely agree with those who have wondered if the author was fulfilling a contract for a word count this book should never have reached.

The story begins in 1963. The Beatles release their first album. The Great Train Robbery takes place and in the normally quiet English countryside of Derbyshire - known for the Peak District National Park, a police constable gets a call. On the line is a frantic mother announcing that her thirteen-year-old daughter is missing and asking for help.

Since there have been two other children who have gone missing recently, police don't waste any time in getting a search party together.

Alison Carter lived with her mother and step-father in a small hamlet of Scardale, where the population is made up of only about three families who were very closely bound.

The investigation led by Detective Inspector George Bennett is very thorough but stalls until one of the old time residents remembers an old mine. At that scene, items are discovered but no body. The evidence points to one person and officials must decide if there is sufficient evidence to arrest that person for murder.

The setting of a small group of homes overlooking one another is well described. We witness the confidence of the town folk that the girl will be found and then the gradual realization that she won't. Then we feel for the difficulty they have contemplating that anyone would harm a sweet girl like Alison.

Without revealing too much in the plot, the story concludes the first section and then moves to 1998. Detective Inspector Bennett is retired. His son meets a woman who wants to return to Scardale to write a book about the crime. New events come to life that will shock the reader.

Val McDermid is a superb entertainer. The plotting is masterful, the characters believable and this excellent book deserves the many allocates it received.

This was the definitive work that attracted me to Val, I am the avid reader, my wife not so much. I recommended that she should read it and she did and THIS WORK became to one against which all others of the genre were compared.
I cannot count how many times my wife and I have sat in judgement of the books or films we have seen and we have then compared them to this novel.
Very few have matched up, my advice is simple, READ IT.

A Place Of Execution
by Val McDermid

My 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.

The 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.

"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..."

With 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.

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.

Being 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.

The only thing missing and never really found is Alison Carter...

If you search online for best thriller lists, this book shows up on all of them. Most of the books on the list were written way in the past so this is one of the fewer contemporary titles to achieve that honor. I just finished it and I well understand why it so easily vaults onto every list. Author Val McDermid, whose Tony Hill-Carol Jordan series I absolutely adore, knocks even that series out of the park with this one. The book has an interesting premise at its core: how do you solve a murder mystery when there is no body? How do you prosecute a murder when there is no body? It's difficult but it has been done before, both in the USA and England. This book is set in England, near Derbyshire, in an inbred enclave of farmers, whose lives revolve around the squire's beneficence. One of their own, a widow with a daughter, recently wed the squire. This daughter, Alison, is the one who goes missing in 1963 and detectives George Bennett and Tommy Clough follow every lead to solve the case and bring the murderer to justice. The book is also set in 1998, when George and Tommy are both in their later sixties and a writer doing a book on the case stirs the case up again. It's one heck of a ride and you will love every minute of it!

Visit my blog with link given on my profile page here or use this phonetically given URL (livingasseniors dot blogspot dot com). Friday's entry will always be weekend entertainment recs from my 5 star the store reviews in film, tv, books and music. These are very heavy on buried treasures and hidden gems. My blogspot is published on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

A thirteen year old girl disappears from a small rural village in England. Is she a runaway, a kidnap victim or worse? George Bennett and Tommy Clough are the investigators assigned to help find Allison, the missing girl. Residents of this insular village are slow to trust the police and even when they begin to reveal important clues, it's clear they're holding something back. When an arrest is made, the defense raises questions about whether or not evidence was fabricated to make the case. In spite of never finding a body, they are able to get a conviction for murder but everyone pays a heavy price for this victory.
George Bennett's sense of honor was wounded in the process of the trial and for years he refuses to talk to anyone about the case. Finally, he agrees to open up to a Catherine, a reporter who's doing research for a book. For George, still haunted by the case, the process of talking to Catherine becomes cathartic and for a while it seems that he'll truly be able to put the past behind him. Then he discovers something that rocks him to his core and raises moral and ethical dilemmas for everyone involved.
Val McDermid is an amazing crime writer who knows how to spin a story out slowly so that you don't guess the ending too soon. The BBC has just done a two-part series based on A Place of Execution which I hope will inspire more people to pick up this well-written and fascinating book. McDermid has a special gift for exploring the dark side of human nature while never allowing the story to devolve into cheap sensationalism. If you liked this one, I'd also recommend McDermid's The Distant Echo, The Grave Tattoo, and her Wire in the Blood series about psychologist Tony Hill and Inspector Carol Jordan (also an amazing BBC series).

Thirteen-year-old Alison Carter disappears on a frigid December night in 1963. No one is more determined to discover her fate than newly promoted Detective Inspector Bennett and his able and trusted partner Detective Sergeant Tommy Clough. For Bennett, the search for Alison, "even if it is just to bring home a daughter's dead body to her mother" becomes a crusade. Their investigations are hampered by the seemingly insular and inbred feudal community of Scardale where Alison lived, along with her closely-knit family of mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Their homes and livelihood depended largely on the grace of their landowner and squire, the much-disliked Philip Hawkin, Ruth's second husband and Alison's stepfather. From the barest of clues, coaxed like blood from stone from the locals, Bennett and Clough mount an investigation, garnering ghastly evidence that ultimately results in a conviction and an execution. Justice was served. Or was it? It will take thirty-five years and an ambitious and aggressive journalist to uncover the truth behind Alison Carter's disappearance.

My feeble attempt at a synopsis cannot do justice to this masterpiece. From its introduction to its ending, Val McDermid's A Place of Execution had me on tenterhooks. Anyone who would deny the fact that mystery novels can be literature must not have read this. Expertly written with fully fleshed out characters so vividly described you'd swear they were right before you. The ingenious plot whose denouement and its horrors could not be diminished by any reader's speculation, no matter how dogged the effort, will remain in my head for a long time. The sensitive yet unflinching depiction of a most heinous crime and the agony it caused make me admire the author's skill even more. There is not a single one of its 465 pages I would take away--every single one of them was a pleasure to read! And did I say justice was served? In my opinion, it was.

Upon its 1999 publication, "A Place of Execution" by Scots mystery author Val McDermid, won rave reviews, and numerous awards. It also introduced the writer to a wider audience, including me. It's a standalone, and a taut psychological thriller. To say that it owes a little something to Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot Mysteries), by McDermid's fellow Scotswoman, Agatha Christie, one of the queens of the British mystery genre, is to take nothing away from McDermid's achievement. McDermid is now considered one of the leading lights of the current day school of writing known as tartan noir (and what's that, you might ask? A crime novel that's unusually dark, bloody and violent, lightened -- only slightly-- by that dark Scottish sense of humor, written by a Scot-- duh!) At any rate, McDermid is probably best-known now for her "Wire in the Blood" series. It is currently being filmed, under that same name (Wire in the Blood - Complete First Season),with the tasty Robson Green as its star, Dr. Tony Hill, in the United Kingdom, and is available for sale in the U.K. and the U.S.

At any rate, the book at hand opens in December, 1963, a freezing day in Scardale, isolated rural village in the White Peak, a place of forbidding limestone cliffs in the greater Manchester area, where its author previously worked as a journalist, and now lives. Alison Carter, 13-year old daughter of recently rewed Ruth Hawkin, stepdaughter of Philip Hawkin, the village's new squire, has disappeared. George Bennett, just moved to the area and promoted to inspector, is unlucky enough to catch the case.

Several of McDermid's characters, including Ruth Hawkin and Bennett, are highly developed. Others, though, including Philip Hawkin and Ma Lomas, queen bee of the village -- where almost everyone is a Carter or a Lomas-- are stereotypes, at best. The 1963 ambiance, all those Beatles singles coming along, is good. The book's ending is too dependent on coincidence, and feels kind of tacked-on; but we need it to figure out what's going on.

The remorseless village of Scardale is at the heart of the book, and it couldn't be more different from Christie's cozies. It's lonely and isolated, particularly in winter, when, the author notes, the sheep huddle together against the walls of the fields for some small protection from the icy winds. As Bennett leads the frantic search for Alison in this weather, a conspiracy is slowly enacted. It's largely the work of the village's admirable women, Ruth Hawkin and Ma Lomas, and it took some bravery, as well as ingenuity, for the women to undertake their plan. In 1963, the squire owned the fields the villagers worked, and their cottages, too. This book is a considerable achievement by its author, that, for once, lives up to its hype.

This Edgar Award finalist and New York Times Notable Book of the Year is a beautifully crafted, intriguing mystery, with well-fleshed characters and an intricate plot. Quintessentially English to its core, this mystery will captivate the reader, not only with its plot but with the vivid imagery that the author skillfully conjures for the reader. Filled with a myriad of twists and turns, this book will keep the reader riveted to its pages.

In the winter of 1983, a thirteen year old girl, Alison Carter, out for a walk with her dog, suddenly vanishes from her sleepy, insular English hamlet. Although there is no corpse, an unexpected discovery in a local cave brings George Bennett, the young Inspector assigned to the case, to an inevitable conclusion, leading to an arrest. Despite its resolution, this case will continue to haunt Inspector Bennett for decades to come.

When journalist Catherine Heathcote decides to write a book about the Derbyshire murder case, the now retired George Bennett fully cooperates until the eve of publication, when he suddenly requests that the book not be published for reasons that he refuses to share with Ms. Heathcote. Suddenly, the intrepid journalist senses that there is more to this story than meets the eye, and she sets out to unravel the secret of what really happened to Alison Carter in the winter of 1963. It is a journey of discovery that will fascinate the reader.

Those who enjoy beautifully written, well-plotted mysteries will simply love this highly atmospheric book. The author is clearly a superlative writer, with real talent for writing intricately plotted mysteries, while creating memorable characters. Bravo!

Partly a police procedural, partly a psychological study, partly a study in gothic atmosphere, and partly a glimpse back into the '60s, this long crime novel by veteran writer McDermid takes the traditional "village cozy" mystery and injects it with all of the above. The framework is a little clunky however-the novel is written as a faux work of "true crime" journalism in which contemporary sections bookend the main section, which is set in 1963. In the first section, the reader is prepared for some controversy regarding the entire work, a controversy that is played out in the third part. In the middle, the basic story is deceptively simple: 13-year-old Alison Carter goes missing from a tiny, isolated village in England's northern Peaks District, and the case is given to George Bennett, young detective inspector on his first assignment.

From the very start, the missing persons case takes on a gothic atmosphere. The village is a spooky place and the inhabitants aren't very keen to assist the police- it's not for nothing the '70s cult film "The Wicker Man" is invoked partway through. What seems like a pretty straightforward case rapidly grows complicated as the days pass and evidence of foul play mounts, but no body is found. It doesn't help that there have been two other missing children in the area in the previous half year, and it's not clear if Alison's disappearance is related. And of course, there's a provocative and nosy newspaperman sticking his oar in.

The procedural elements are all very strong, as Bennett orchestrates the investigation with the assistance of his rough-edged sergeant and other aides, while remaining in close contact with Alison's mother and stepfather. Bennett is a likeable character, a striving university graduate who is eager to prove his worth to his less educated colleagues. The early '60s setting is vividly brought to life, especially the cultural gulf between the small feudal village, where "the squire" owns everything, and the comparatively bustling towns that lie nearby. Despite a few red herrings, one obvious suspect is in evidence from the very beginning. Eventually, this person is charged and a the book descends into a very long-winded and redundant trial sequence that simply restates and rehashes the investigation so ably detailed previously, with the result that the book almost grinds to a total halt.

Following the court case, the third section brings the reader back to the present, where it is explained who has written this "true crime" book and how it all came about. Here, one must allow for a remarkably unlikely coincidence, one so forced and preposterous that some readers will likely heave the book across the room once they realize what has happened. All of which gets to the heart of the controversy alluded to the first section, and then a final huge plot twist, which most readers will have spotted several hundred pages previously. And yet McDermid's command style and atmosphere makes it just worthwhile-despite the ire-inducing "gotcha" ending, the weak trial sequence, and the hefty coincidence.

Val McDermid sets "A Place of Execution" in Scardale, a fictional village in Derbyshire, England. The year is 1963. One day, thirteen-year-old Alison Carter comes home from school and takes her dog out for a walk. She is not seen again. Several other children have been abducted in the area of late, and Alison's disappearance soon rings alarm bells. The police are called in to investigate.
Detective Inspector George Bennett, who has never run a homicide investigation before, takes charge of the case. Bennett finds, much to his consternation, that this case will take him away for many hours from his young and lovely wife whom he adores. It will also plunge him into fits of doubt and despair that drive him to smoke endlessly and to stay up at night, worried and sleepless.
One problem is that the villagers of Scardale, who are all related to one another by blood, do not trust outsiders. They refuse to open up to Bennett and they seem to be obstructing, rather than aiding, the investigation. Another problem is that there is little physical evidence to guide the police. The investigation takes many twists and turns, some of which are quite startling.
The inside flap of this book calls "A Place of Execution" a Greek tragedy and that is an apt description. It is a story of people destroying one another with no one really winning in the end. The characters are beautifully drawn. Detective Inspector Bennett is a model of rectitude and compassion. Alison's mother, Ruth, is a grief-stricken wreck, and Alison's stepfather, Philip Hawkin, is devious and irritatingly nonchalant when his stepdaughter disappears. McDermid captures the physical and emotional ambiance of a small English village perfectly and her sense of time and place is impeccable.
However, "A Place of Execution" falls short in several areas. The pacing is too slow. Many pages go by when little or nothing happens, and a little judicious editing would have helped. The ending should have been exciting, but since it took so long in coming, the denouement is a bit anticlimactic. Although the book seems to have as one of its themes the exploration of guilt and moral ambiguity, when the truth is finally revealed, there is little ambiguity. "A Place of Execution" is an ambitious psychological thriller that only partially succeeds in delivering a strong emotional impact.

Unlike most popular crime authors, Val McDermid is not afraid to try something original. Unlike most crime authors who attempt a different approach to an overpopulated subject, she has the writing ability to pull it off - brilliantly, in the case of 'A Place of Execution'.
The book is an intensive look at a single crime - the disappearance and murder of a young girl from a tiny English village in the early 1960s. The crime, its setting, victim, suspects, and investigating officers are studied minutely - at the time, and some 35 years later. This does not sound like engrossing stuff, and for quite a while I read the synopsis of this book and couldn't be bothered buying it. I'm glad I finally did - in the hands of Ms McDermid it's an enthralling and sometimes disturbing drama. The crime is awful, the courtroom scenes as tense as any legal thriller, the punishment horrible, and their effect on everyone concerned shapes their lives.
Many murder books could have been set anywhere & anytime, apart from a few gratuitous references to city landmarks or using the Internet. This author has the rare knack, in all her books, of being able to exactly convey a sense of time and place. A Place of Execution owes its effectiveness to this ability. You experience the orderly world of British policing in the 60's, where policemen are always men, token WPCs are there just to make the tea (never coffee) and deal with the weepy victims, and everyone chain-smokes without a thought. The close-knit village, and its inhabitants, feels claustrophobic and sinister.
When the book shifts 35 years to 1998, it's quite a culture shock - you sense the change to the here and now, in the modern dialog, the attitudes, the outlook. You'll be as surprised by the end of the book as any of the characters - it's a real journey.
Val McDermid is so underrated internationally, I don't know why. I suspect a lot of US readers think that any murder books set in the UK are just about re-hashed Inspectors Morse, Dalgliesh, Wexford and so on. The truth is, most of them are, but A Place of Execution isn't one of them - it's unusual, chilling, and very, very clever. Find it, buy it and read it! It's one of the most memorable books I've read in ages.

This is my first Val McDermid novel and it definitely will not be my last. When I finished reading the book I had to take a breather to take in everything that happened in this story. It is thought provoking and disturbing.
It is December 1963. George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, is sent to Scardale, a small hamlet in England, to investigate the disappearance of 13-year-old Alison Carter. Since this is Inspector Bennett's first case, he hunts high and low trying to find the whereabouts of the missing teenager. Everybody in town is very protective and they do not make the investigation easy for the police. They do not volunteer any information and one gets the feeling that everybody in town knows something that we do not. After a week's investigation, the police find evidence that suggests that Alison was raped and murdered.
Shortly thereafter, an arrest is made. The suspect is convicted and punished even though he claims to be innocent. Alison's body was never found but they still managed to find the suspect guilty. This could easily have been the end of the book but it is only the first three-quarters of the novel.
In the last quarter of the book thirty-five years have already passed. Catherine Heathcote, a journalist, manages to get George Bennett, now retired, to participate in a true crime book about the murder of Alison Carter. He agrees and collaborates in the writing of the book. It is not until the last possible moment that Bennett asks Heathcote not to publish the book. During a recent visit to Scardale he uncovered some new evidence that brings a whole lot of questions regarding the crime. He refuses to say anything more regarding the case.
Heathcote, not easily swayed, investigates. Her discovery has serious repercussions to a lot of people involved in McDermid's work. This is what make the book great and why I put it in my highly recommended list.

Great writing makes this small English village come alive along with the fascinating people in it. A 13 year old girl has disappeared, and a rookie police inspector is determined to uncover the mystery in spite of a village that seems unified in its distrust of outsiders. This sounds like a typical mystery novel, but it is anything but. This book drew me in, and fascinated me throughout. The twists and turns were expertly woven, riveting me to every detail. The ending was great. The clues were sprinkled throughout, which made the dramatic climax especially satisfying. Mystery novels used to be one of my favorite genres, but I find myself disappointed and often bored with these books now, no matter how highly recommended. This, though, is a classic - where literature intersects page-turners. If you like mysteries and great writing, check out "A Place of Execution."

Quality Mystery
Val McDermid brings us face to face with some disturbing issues in her book A Place of Execution. A child's disappearance is always unsettling and McDermid's novel about young Allison Carter vanishing from the closed community of Scardale is most disturbing. McDermid's tale is one which brings to light questions of justice and vengeance as well as providing the reader with a quality mystery story
Chief Inspector George Bennett and Detective Sergeant Tommy Clough join forces in their search for the missing 13 year-old. Both men are interesting characters who have an innate sense of justice and a strong desire for Allison to be returned to those she loves. The residents of the hamlet of Scardale, where young Allison is from seem determined to put obstacles in the way of the detectives. All residents are related to each other and seem to know each other's business, but when the need to be truthful and honest is so vital they seem to be less than forthcoming. This in itself is a mystery, because Allison is a well loved and valued member of the community. It is odd that Scardale would be so distrustful of strangers as to disrupt the investigation.
While this book is a stand alone the team of George Bennett and Tommy Clough are an intriguing pair. Bennett a young and inexperienced detective is sincere and idealistic in his goals. George has a sympathy for the victim which is appealing and honest. Tommy Clough is a seasoned veteran who seems impossible to fool and as such is a valuable asset to George in his search for the truth in Scardale.
There are sufficient clues for the experienced mystery readers to guess some of the story, but even for them, there should be some surprises in store.

Val McDermid's title comes from the formal death sentence in England: "You shall be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to a place of lawful execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead ...."

And so it happens - a very wicked person is executed in August 1964.

The 1963-64 section is narrated by journalist Catherine Heathcote, who uses the point of view of the new Detective Inspector George Bennett in Buxton, a small Derbyshire town. His first major case is finding what happened to Alison Carter, 13, who has disappeared from a tiny hamlet named Scardale. (McDermid supplies a sketch of Scardale, with its eight homes and a manor house, and you'll need it to keep track of the much-intermarried families.)

The 30 residents of Scardale are a close-mouthed crew, distrustful of strangers and protective of their own. Suspicion falls first on a banished relative, then on a Scardale teenager. No joy - in fact, there is a sad death of an innocent, resulting indirectly from police work. Slowly, there are cracks in the silence: vile photographs turn up; some of Alison's clothing is found; a suspect is named.

More than that I'm not saying. Or just this: McDermid has improved immensely since Dead Beat and Report for Murder. In those (both parts of series), she gives unwonted attention to the sex lives of her protagonists (and who cares?). In A Place of Execution, Bennett's family life does come in (his son is born the day of the execution), but the son's life in 1998 (when the second part of the story is set) plays an important part in Bennett's discovery of how Alison Carter lost her life.

After reading those earlier books, I thought McDermid was all right, nothing special. But with this one and her most recent, Killing the Shadows, she is right up there with such names as Minette Walters and Reginald Hill.

This novel has received great acclaim and a succession of awards. A hard-edged 'village' cozy, it is ambitious in its reach and largely successful in its execution. Caveat emptor, however. The first half is very, very slow, while the second half flies. It tries your patience but then rewards it. It also meet the full expectations of genre, by being both 'unique' and 'faithful' simultaneously. However, while it looks very different from most novels of its kind it is, simultaneously, extreme in its conventionality.

It is a novel within a novel and, hence, recalls the 18th- and 19th-century antecedents in which a created narrative voice is seen from multiple time levels. The usual form is one in which an individual has found an earlier document and 'edits' it. Alternatively, a figure in the present examines a document from the past and the time/past and time/present narratives exist in parallel. This is a common 20th-century variant on the earlier models. A PLACE OF EXECUTION builds on this model, successfully, and then offers a 'twist' ending. The 'twist', however, is also a very conventional one. Christie readers, e.g., will not be surprised.

Thus, in retrospect, the novel is a conventional one, but it does not feel conventional while one is reading it. In part that is due to its length and the heavy texturing which characterizes the first half. DO read it, but gird yourself for a 'cozy' conclusion following a near-epic exposition.

It�s December 1964 in a remote, almost feudal Derbyshire village and thirteen-year-old Alison Carter has gone missing while taking her dog for a walk after school. When she hasn�t returned after five hours in freezing weather, her panicked mother calls the cops, and so begins the first major case in the career of newly-promoted Detective Inspector George Bennett, a university graduate on the fast track. Alison can�t be found, nor is there a body, but enough evidence gradually accumulates to convince Bennett and his principal helper, Detective Sgt. Tommy Clough, that a murder has indeed been committed -- but whodunnit? Hang on, though -- it�s not as simple as all that. Not even close. Because thirty-five years after the crime has apparently been solved, after the case has come to a firm legal conclusion, journalist Catherine Heathcote, who grew up nearby, becomes interested in the case and George agrees to help her in writing a book. And then things begin to unravel. McDermid is very good at developing and delineating character and in leading the reader (especially American readers) through the complexities of British police and judicial procedure, and while she tends to over-write on occasion, she certainly makes you care what happens to the insular inhabitants of Scardale. Properly cast, this book would make an excellent film.

In December 1963, Alison Carter disappears from her home in the small village of Scardale, a tiny farming community set apart from the outside world. Newly promoted Inspector George Bennett is assigned to the case and works tirelessly, round the clock to find out what happened to the girl. After several false starts and dead ends, he finally arrests a suspect and brings him to trial.....Fast forward to 1998: With the help of George Bennett, journalist Catherine Heathcote has written the definitive book on the whole Alison Carter affair. But just before the book is to come out, she receives a letter from the now retired inspector, asking her to stop publication. New information, he won't divulge, has come to his attention and he is adamant that the book never be published. Catherine now feels she needs to reinvestigate and go back over the entire case to find out why.....A Place of Execution is an eloquently written, remarkable book, full of atmosphere and suspense. The book is divided into two parts. The first, a mystery/police procedural, could stand alone. In fact, the last scene of the first section is so harrowing, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat, holding your breath. The second section, the investigative journalist at work, takes you back over the events of thirty-five years ago, but this time, from a different perspective. Put together, Val McDermid has written an amazing, intricately plotted novel, full of great, interesting characters with strong voices, vivid, riveting scenes and a powerful ending that will knock your socks off. A Place of Execution is an intense and gripping thriller, definitely one of this years best and a book that shouldn't be missed.

Remember when the food and drink naming trend began? The trend of reaching for increased verisimilitude in novels by describing the exact nature of the nourishment consumed by the characters? The protagonist didn�t just discuss something over an undefined dinner. He or she spoke while ingesting sweetbreads smothered in a delicate sauce of�well you get the picture. In �A Place of Execution� we are informed every time that a character smokes a cigarette. Not only are we enlighted about the lighting up ceremony, but we are also told the brand of the cigarette, and kept abreast of events by updates on ash flicking, inhaling and stub extinguishing. Not that this makes for an unworthy novel; its just odd that Ms McDermid has decided to spend so much time on this particular vice. My hunch is that the author had just given up smoking when writing the novel, and that she is smoking vicariously through her characters.
The novel concerns a young girl who has disappeared from her home in a tiny, secluded town in England. Police Inspector George Barnett is in charge of the case and a dedicated man he is. He devotes most of his time in trying to find young Alison, and we readers share the effort being dragged through hill and dale in the search. The townspeople, being very secluded, would be good candidates for biological research in the investigation of the genetic effects of inbreeding. They are horrified about Alison�s disappearance, yet are strangely uncooperative with the police. Yet the diligence of George�s intensive search while smoking pack after pack of cigarettes pays off. Someone is arrested for the crime, and is convicted of murder. Then we jump 30 years and find new information about the disappearance that is quite disconcerting. While reading the book a strange thought kept creeping into my mind, a thought that later proved accurate. Will you guess the answer to the mystery? Read the book and find out. It�s quite entertaining.

In modern British fiction writing much of the interesting work (engaging with social issues, politics, and class) is found with genre writers. As some novelists retreat into an insular examination of the lives and loves of writers (and other creative types), genre writers - in dealing with the underside of humanity - can examine the big questions. At the vanguard of modern British crime writing are the likes of Ruth Rendell, Denise Mina, John Harvey, Michael Dibdin, and the writer of the book under review, Val McDermid.
McDermid is an interesting writer. Her previous books have included a PI series, and pyschological thrillers that geuninely shock (such as The Mermaids Singing). This book, A Place of Execution, is something of a departure.
It falls readily into two principal parts. The first section comprises a police procedural. It is set at the time of the notorious Moors Murders in 1963 (what is it with British writers and 1963? John Lawton's A Little White Death and Reginald Hill's Recalled to Life, also use the year as a starting point). The Moors Murders were child killings that horrified British society and still have an effect today. As the novel opens a child goes missing in a small isolated village. The child is the step daughter of the local squire. A new police inspector is involved, and this first section follows his investigation. It is written in the third person, but the chief protagonist is the inspector and we follow his attempts to win the trust of the small community, and the police politics that is played out in the background. One does not wish to give too much away about the investigation, as there are a number of twists throughout this section. But the section concludes with a trial at which the inspector's own character and motivation is questioned.
McDermid excels at the portrayal of the effect of the loss of a child on a family and on a community. Also convincing are the relationships McDermid draws. The developing friendship between the investigating police sergeant, and the recently graduated inspector; the close relationship between the inspector and his wife (a peripheral character in the novel, but a convincing anchor of stability in his personal life); and the manner in which he wins the trust of local people. There are some grotesque local characters created; but coming from a small locality myself these characters are not out of place, and are only symptomatic of a general approach to non-locals. The class distinction between the squire and the villagers is also acutely observed.
If the novel were to stop at the conclusion of the trial there would be a highly satisfying genre procedural.
However, it is with an audacious second half that McDermid excels. It transpires that the first half is a memoir written by a journalist. The inspector then tries to block publication.
In this section we follow the professional writer researching, gathering information, and examining an incident from over thirty years before. Many of the characters in the first half are revisited, older, and with prejudices reinforced, or challenged by their own experiences.
Character development is wonderful , and the investigation becomes a gripping thriller.
In this section McDermid turns all that you have accepted in the first half on its head.
This is an excellent novel. Its characterisation is, without exception, of the highest quality; and it is strongly plotted. Its sole flaw, to my mind, is the conclusion. It is bold, but not wholly convincing. However, for me, its merits outweigh this. This is compelling, and looks at the extremes of love and loss. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
If you enjoy this book I would suggest you try On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill, which has similar virtues, and is as well written.

***SPOILERS FOR THIS BOOK OR FOR "DRAGON TATTOO"***
I got turned on to Val McDermid thanks to Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." In that novel, Mikael Blomkvist is reading McDermid's "The Mermaids Singing" while he investigates Harriet Vanger's disappearance and presumed murder. This is an inside joke because the villain in "Mermaids" is a serial killer with a torture chamber in his basement, just like Martin Vanger. Now that I've read "A Place of Execution", I see that it supplied another crucial plot piece for "Dragon Tattoo", as its own missing and presumed dead teenager suffered the same fate as Harriet. Reading these two McDermid books has made me admire her greatly, but Larsson less!

Ms. McDermid gives us a real "stand-alone." Not only is it not a serial mystery, it can be read as a complex novel by the non-mystery lover. The characters are out of the ordinary and multifaceted. The locale is an integral part of the tale and never far from our mind. There are many players, yet the author makes each so distinctive, the reader never has the dismaying problem of trying to remember who is who and why are they are appearing or disappearing.
The inbred inhabitants of Scardale may have some genetic degeneration, but lack of shrewdness isn't one of them. Also their ability to close ranks when one of their own is threatened is awe-inspiring. I felt there was a little too much agonizing and soul searching on the part of George Bennett, the newly minted Detective Inspector on the case; however, his doggedness was presented well. He was both appealing and exasperating. There were a few clunky clues, and I had a strong suspicion of the guilty party, but was mystified throughout as to how the author was going to resolve the mystery.
Recommend this thoughtful, exciting book for anyone, particularly a "cozy" lover who would like to expand his or her horizons.

It was just a couple weeks before Christmas when teenager Alison Carter disappeared. Perhaps in London no one would notice, but in the tightly woven farming community of Scarsdale, that is a frightening shocker. Detective Inspector George Bennett takes charge of the inquiry in the small Derbyshire hamlet, knowing this case could end his career before it starts. With no clues and even fewer suspects, the police turn to the lass' stepfather Philip Hawkin as the alleged killer.

In 1998, journalist Catherine Heathcote wants to write a true crime book focusing on the Carter case. She obtains cooperation from the now retired George. However, as Catherine conducts her research, George learns something new that shakes him. Soon he suffers a heart attack that leaves him unconscious, and if he survives, he will probably be brain damaged.

Already highly regarded by fans and critics, Val McDermid has written her masterpiece, a novel that is a sure shot to make all the lists. A PLACE OF EXECUTION is a serious tome centering on what is justice and who is answerable to society and the victims when the system fails. The characters are fully developed, and the middle sixties feels genuine. This novel is Ms. McDermid's most ambitious and complex work, but she more than triumphs with this extraordinary book.

Harriet Klausner

Set in England in 1963, this British thriller is anything but a "cosy". Thirteen year-old Allison disappears while walking her dog in the strange, insular and perhaps incestuous village of Scardale. Detective Inspector Bennett, assigned to the case, plunges in and gets to know the villagers, their lives and concerns. Despite his best efforts, neither Allison or her body can be found. Bennett becomes consumed with the case and cannot rest until he finds Allison for her mother. Villagers seem to be both secretive and concerned about Allison, making the job more difficult for police. Clues such as where she could have been abducted and possibly murdered do unfold and point to her stepfather as the suspect.
The novel comes in parts and Part 2 begins when a novelist documents the case 30 years later. Although the crime had been "solved" 30 years earlier, the story and nightmare begin again when Bennett collapses with a heart attack after making a horrible discovery.
A gripping, taut story with intriguing characters and a plot where things are not what they seem. This is my favorite book of 2001.

After I finished this 500+ page book, I passed it onto my mystery lovin' grandfather, who then passed it onto my aunt. In other words, the books become a family classic!

I read it over a rainy weekend. Indeed, it has a setting that is cold and calculating...characters that, if one is like me, one will always be suspicious of the motives...and many twists and turns...

The book also is divided into several sections: beginning; trial; ending (I'm sure they're called something other than that but that's what I'm calling them off the top of my head).

While I knew the book had a surprise ending, I did not see the one Ms. McDermid chose coming. Of course, once I found out what it was I fell in love with it, and the rest of the book came together.

My biggest gripe about the book was the sheer length of it. It easily could have been cut by 200 pages and still been an excellent novel...though at the time that seemed like a bigger deal than it does now. The ending also seemed a little sharp, as though more could have been taken from the beginning of the book and added to the end. My grandfather complained about too many details, especially about such things as characters drinking tea. Go figure. He is a man...

Anyway, I did give this book five stars, because despite it's length and any misgivings my mother's father may have towards it, it's a read that's well worth your time. Purchase it today.

This is one of the most amazing kidnap/murder stories I have ever listened to.

So many other reviews have gone into the story line. Let me tell you why I would happily give this a 6 star if I could. I listen to so many stories after a while some stories become a bit of a yawn you need something different with a different twist.

This story has a slightly slow start, setting the scene then it took off dragging me behind it. The world seemed to stop while i was listening.

I have a lounge chair and if nothing to do will sit there and listen within 30 minutes I am asleep with ipod still going (really annoying when i wake)....... But THE PLACE OF EXECUTION ....... NO WAY I could sleep eyes alert and at times in shock but wow this will be on my top 25 favourite books ever!!!!!

This has to be on everyone's TBR (To be read) list

In this marvellous recasting of the traditional English village mystery, Val McDermid has succeeded in creating a story that cries out for comparison with the masterpieces of the mystery genre. Indeed, one finds traces of many of the great ones embedded in the plot, reworked and refashioned in original ways to serve the narrative - Nicholas Blake's "The Beast Must Die," Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," David Stout's "Carolina Skeletons" and Josephine Tey's "The Franchise Affair" are a few that come to mind. The tale of two policemen obsessed with the brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl and the journalist who revisits the crime 35 years later has everything for even the most demanding of mystery fans - ingenious plotting, expertly drawn atmosphere and absorbing characters. And behind it all is a truly chilling depiction of revenge, and the long-armed evil to which it is a response...a reminder that the evil that men do really does live after them.

A Place of Execution should rightfully be considered the best mystery/suspense novel of the year. Val McDermid has succeeded in writing one of the most engrossing and thrilling novels ever to be printed. The writing is sharp, concise and keeps the reader thoroughly involved. The characters are beautifully portrayed and the novel itself is steeped in an atmosphere that is simultaneously dreary and oppressive. McDermid's portrayal of English village life in the early 1960's, where there are no secrets and everyone from the outside world is not to be trusted, comes across as truth incarnate. There is nothing that is exaggerated for the sake of shocking the reader. Everything falls seamlessly into place in a plot so intricate even the best writer could not duplicate it. The writing gradually spirals upward to a conclusion so shocking, it will leave you breathless. A Place of Execution is not just the best novel of the year, it is one of the best novels ever written.

I listened to the audio version of this book. The story was by turns intriguing, appalling, chilling, and deeply disturbing, sometimes all at once. I was looking for the twist (because of hints from other reviews) but still found it satisfying (there was a lot more to it than I'd guessed). The author's style was deliberate as opposed to fast paced, but highly polished.

My main complaint is that I think I may have developed a lung condition from all the secondhand smoke. The characters in this book talk a lot and when they do they smoke cigarettes--it felt like hundreds of them--or the occasional brier pipe. This author is certainly clever enough to come up with a couple more devices her characters can adopt to make the reader feel "there."

What a book! I don't usually do "english" mysteries because they are too cute and cosy, or simply move to slow for me. I have read a few of Mcdermids other books, (Lindsey Gorden) and have enjoyed them, but this one has surpassed anything I have read by her, or by any other mystery author lately. I couldn't put it down. (In fact, this morning I was late for work cause I made the mistake of picking it up to read with my coffee.)
I read alot of books and can usually figure out what is going on before the end, but not with this one. It keeps you guessing, and just when you think you have it figured out, you get blindsided. I really loved this book!
I could write alot more, but with all the twists and turns, I'm afraid i might give something away. If you are looking for something different, something with a little bit of a nasty twist, and something to really get lost in, read this book. I really don't think you will be disappointed!

Very seldom after reading a book with many twist and turns can you say that the characters actions made sense throughout the book. This story was one of them. It was a logical development with interesting characters that took a number of turns that actually made sense at the end of the day. It was hard to figure out what the ending would be although all the pertinent facts were disclosed throughput the story.

What begins as a compelling but standard police novel begins to turn on its axis into an exploration of the psychology of violence and the meaning of justice. Ms McDermid has written a beautiful novel about loss of innocence on the individual and national planes. Allison Carter's murder haunts everyone whose life it touches in 1963. What the players do not realize is that this crime will continue to have victims 35 years later. As layer upon layer of secrets come to light, the motives of police, family and journalist come into question.
I read the novel quickly and then lent it out immediately so that I could have someone else with whom to talk about it. The novel gives a complete picture of village life in the early '60s as modern England begins to leave behind its feudal past as a relic of history. Please do yourself the grand favor of reading this superb mystery.

Teen girl goes missing in early 1960s, jerk step-father becomes suspect in tiny, insulated England village. Flash-forward 35 years as full story comes out. This seems to be McDermid’s best-reviewed book but the twist was obvious early on and McDermid had to jump around with the time frame in the last third of the book to force suspense. The writing was plain, the weakest of the seven books of hers I’ve read. Bechdel test: Pass.

Val McDermid has written a book which is a combination of different categories: suspense, thriller, cop and detective novel. I think that she has combined all of these types with a resounding success. This book is very dark, intense, gritty, and serious. I don't think A Place of Execution would have been as good if it hadn't contained all of these tones. It helps set the scene for the book, and by removing just one of them, it would lower the effect the book has on the reader. Ms McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community, studied English at Oxford and worked as a journalist for 16 years before turning to writing fiction. She has won many awards; A Place of Execution won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anthony, Macavity, and Dilys awards for Best Novel, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the Edgar Award.

This book is about a 13-year-old girl who disappears one day while walking her dog. There is an intense search for her, which ends with the finding of bullets in a cave along with her ripped clothes. The police then arrest her step-father and put him on trial. After 35 years a journalist, Catherine Heatcote, decides to write a book about the case. Her friend's father, George Bennett, was the lead cop on this case, but he never gives interviews or talks to anyone about this case; not even his family know his take on the case. His partner DS Clough also gives his one and only interview to Catherine. When asked why he never gave any interviews, he stated that he felt that Bennett was the one to make that decision and he wouldn't challenge him on it. Since Bennett was talking to her, Clough stated that he felt he could talk to her too.

Catherine learns that Alison, the missing girl, lived in a town that for the most part still lives in the 19th century even though the rest of the world is living in the 20th century. Scardale is a town that has a baron who owns the land and everyone who lives there. Everyone there is related to each other in some sort of way. The baron is the only one who doesn't have any relatives there. He is considered an outsider, because most of the residents just married each other and have lived in Scardale their whole lives. There is only one phone in the middle of the town and the kids have the freedom to run all over the land with no fear of anything bad happening to them. That is until the day Alison disappeared.

Scardale hates the outside world and that caused problems for the police. George Bennett has said that pulling teeth would be easier then getting useful information out of the residents of Scardale. Just before Catherine's book is to be published George Bennett pulls his support out of the project after stumbling onto new information. With the help of Clough, Catherine investigates what causes George to pull his support and when she finds out, she has to decide what to do with the book.

I couldn't put this book down at all while reading it. I was at the edge of my seat throughout the whole book and in the end I agreed with what Catherine had decided to do with her book on the case of Alison Carter.

In this book there is no Watson; in other words, you learn what is happening by being the main character at that point in time. Even though there was no Watson, there was no way you could figure out the conclusion to this mystery ahead of time. In this book I think the ending was so out there that no one could figure it out before hand. I also think that what Catherine decides to do with her book is the right thing. The twist added to the power of this book.

Ms. McDermid also used several different styles of mysteries. I think that by doing this it adds to the book, because you learn more about the characters and the plot. I think that she was able to make us love these characters because she was able to tell us what was going on in their lives. You learn why Bennett was so obsessed with this case, you learn why Clough was the one who always backed up George when others wouldn't. I think that her use of imagery was one of the things that drew me into this book.

Even if you have learned how to pick out the different types of mysteries, I think that you will have a hard time picking them out of this mystery because of how well Ms. McDermid was able to combine them into the making of this story. The plot is well structured, and that is crucial in this story. If even one section is out of place it would throw this whole story into turmoil. In this particular story you can't learn things out of context or order, because then you wouldn't be able to understand this plot and the importance of the facts.

She was also able to give us the history of the town where the book takes place. The cool thing about this book is that it doesn't just cover one time in history. The book is spilt into two parts. The first part takes place when Alison disappears. The story mostly takes place in the town of Scardale. Even though the disappearance takes place in 1963, you learn the history of Scardale up to that point in time. The second part of this book takes place in 1998. This time though the story doesn't center itself in Scardale, however you do learn what has stayed the same and what has changed since 1963 to 1998 in Scardale. Some authors, like Agatha Christie, don't talk about scenery but I feel that learning about the scenery adds to the power of this story.

The strength of this book is the fact that you can't guess what is going to happen and that she was able to write a story so well that has such an intricate plot. However, the weakness of this book is how there are two mysteries going on, but she only really solves the one for you. The other gets a sentence which explains who committed those crimes, but in the end you won't remember what that sentence said.

I think that anyone who loves mysteries that have surprise, suspense, and detailed settings and characters will love Val McDermid's books. However, if you get impatient with too much detail, don't like learning what makes the character the person he or she is, and most importantly, if you don't like descriptive, gruesome details about the murders, then you probably won't enjoy her books.

I normally read American hard-boiled mysteries, so when a friend told me to read A Place of Execution, I was really skeptical. Anything that is set in the UK, especially in a small village, usually screams "cozy" at me.
Boy, was I won over! This book is more like a true-crime book than anything else. The story about the missing Carter girl is written in a satisfying way to those who like gritty details, psychological reasoning, police officers with humanity, and people in bad situations who don't curl up and die.
I was really impressed with how much I was won over by this book, since it is so far out of the genre I normally read. I generally don't pick up books set in the UK since the language difference can be jarring to me. That didn't happen with this book at all, much to my enjoyment. I suspect this book will win over a lot of American readers, as well as satisfy those who read a lot about Scotland.
A very satisfying read. A successful jaunt out of genre for me. I will be reading more McDermid books.

A PLACE OF EXECUTION is the first of Val McDermid's books I've read. I saw a feature on CBS Sunday morning and picked up the book immmediately. Everything you've read about her books is true---she is an excellent storyteller.
From the first pages, she sets the mood very effectively. Ms. McDermid grew up in a small Scottish mining town, much the same setting as the novel. The imagery of the Scottish countryside will literally bring chills up and down your spine!
The characters are well-drawn, the plot hooks you from the start, and the conclusion is quite a surprise. She well deserves all the awards she has received for writing this extraordinarily disturbing murder story. Read it then pass it along to a friend who can appreciate fine writing and a plot to match it.
I really would give it 6 stars out of 5!

A girl is reported missing by her stepfather who also happens to be the squire of the very insular village of Scardale, where she lives. The officer in charge of the investigation is a young Inspector named George Bennett. It is early in Bennett's career, so this could be a make or break case for him. Because of this, he is determined to find out what really happened, leading us on a relentless pursuit of the truth. Unfortunately, the villagers of Scardale are not very forthcoming when it comes to information, almost to the point where it seems they don't want the girl found.
This is an extremely intriguing plot that relentlessly drew me in as evidence slowly came to light. I found myself guessing first one conclusion, then another and still found room for another twist in the tale.

A Place Of Execution is the first Val McDermid book I've read and I'm now worried that any book of her I read now will be a let down. It was utterly riveting.

Without giving too much away the book is the story of a child abduction in 1960's Britain. There are chilling references (depicted in newspaper snippets) of the disappearance of victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (2 of Britain's most notorious child killers)

The central figures is George Bennet, a newly promoted detective inspector investigating the abduction/murder of a 13 year old girlin a remote Derbyshire village. Faced with dead ends and closed doors it becomes a personal obsession. Years later he tells his story to a journalist,Catherine Heathcote.

The description of policing and investigating in the 1960s is utterly compelling. There are some harrowing passages, but these are necessary to the plot and thoroughly non gratuitous.

The twist is totally unexpected and brilliant.

I'm not going to say much more. I cannot recommended this book enough

I am an American who loves British Mystery writers like Peter Robinson, P.D.James, Margaret Yorke and the peerless Ruth Rendell. If you have read any of these authors books, then you will know that it is high praise indeed to add Val McDermid to this list. This book boasts wonderful characterizations, and a superb feel for life in a tiny, isolated English village circa the early 1960's, but the cunning plot is what really shines through here. I will not detail the events that take place in "A Place of Execution" because I fear that I might give too many clues and ruin the experience of reading it for yourself. It was a pleasure to read a book where I was genuinely mystified by the events depicted. I just had to keep on turning the pages until I found out what really happened in the tiny village of Scardale all those years ago and why those events continued to haunt everyone touched by them.

Val McDermid's Place of Execution is as gripping a mystery as I have read in years. It has a setting that is both physically interesting and so ripe with atmosphere that in a recent trip near the fictional locale I actually found myself looking for a place I knew did not exist. The police characters and many of the villagers are fully-realized, interesting and genuine. The angle she has taken, a fictional "true crime" book is absorbing and not at all distracting. And the plot had this hardened mystery reader saying "Oh no" out loud twice in the last 50 pages. Val McDermid is a find for any fan of mysteries. but Place of Execution is a find for anyone who loves good literature.

Cleverly plotted, well written, Val McDermid has written a taught suspense that deals not just with the disappearance of children in England, but with the emotions of the police officers tracking the killer.
The only reason I couldn't offer five stars for this beautifully written book is because I remeber the real 'Moors Murderers' in UK in the 1960s and McDermid has mixed fact with fiction in this tale. At times, I wasn't sure if I was reading a factual account or whether it was, indeed, just a novel. Maybe that was the author's intention but, for me, it distracted me a little from an otherwise brilliant piece of writing.
Don't let this put you off buying this book. It's an excellent read.

This was my first Val McDermid mystery and I enjoyed it very much. The riveting story begins on a cold winter morning in 1964 and spans the lives of DI Benett and his sergeant Tommy Clough for the next 35 years. The plot quickly draws the reader in and doesn't let go until the last page. We follow the detectives as they investigate the disappearance of a young girl and bring a murder to what appears to be a successful conclusion. It's particularly interesting to meet the characters again 35 years later, when fresh evidence surfaces.
The only irritating habit that Val McDermid characters seem to have in common is one of too much drinking and smoking. Despite my growing annoyance with cigarettes on every page, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Ordinarily, I'm a little suspicious of those books that absolutely everyone seems to be raving about. Can anything possibly live up to the hype? Well, after hearing for months about how fabulous A PLACE OF EXECUTION is, I finally read it, and I was totally blown away. Beautifully written, compelling, characters you'd swear were real -- this book has it all. I raced through this 400-page book in only 2 1/2 days; whenever I put it down, all I could do was think about how much I was looking forward to coming back to it! Val McDermid deserves every bit of praise she's received for this towering achievement in mystery fiction.

In 1963 thirteen year old Alison Carter goes missing while walking her dog in a tiny rural English village. George Bennett, a young police officer, works tirelessly to solve the crime. Thirty five years later a reporter convinces the retired Bennett to help her write a book about the case, opening up a whole new can of worms.

The first section of the book, which concludes shortly after the trial, was an excellent British mystery, similar to what I would expect from a good P.D. James or Elizabeth George novel. The second section, which covers the review, brings in a wonderful twist that really earns this book the fifth star. It elevates the book from one that I would gladly suggest to a friend who asked for a recommendation to one that I will actively tell friends that they have to read. Highly recommended.

Usually I avoid the British mystery genre. While "A Place of Execution" by Val McDermid was nominated for the 2001 Best Novel Edgar, it was the high praise from Michael Connelly and Steve Hamilton that compelled me to read it.
It is an excellent police procedural, albeit quite Dickensian. The two protagonists are skillfully drawn as are the secondary cast members.
And you are realistically transported to the English country villages of the early sixties---with some great pop culture references as well.
The plot proceeds at a deliberate pace due to much backtracking. That is very helpful due to the number of important bit players.
The book requires effort on the part of the reader, and it does pay off.
Overall I thought it could have been shorter and am not driven to read more of her books.
Back to Michael Connelly and Steve Hamilton.

This book grabs you from the very begining. You get caught up in the frenzy of a town trying to find a lost girl. George Bennett is in charge of the investigation of Alison Carter. He finds the dark town of Scardale to be very secretive and disturbing. Their resistance even harms his case. The characters come to life on the page. This is a quick read. The novel ends with all of my questions answered. The only problem I had with the book is the summary on the back page. I think it gives too much of the story away. But that's probably not the writer's fault. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Although a voracious reader, I have scrupulousy avoided English mysteries. I have found them impenetrable,profoundly boring,excessively wordy,and frequently have problems with expressions and word usage foreign to this American.Such was the situation for the first 50 pages of Place of Execution. I perservered only because of a friends' strong recommendation. So happy that I did.Once into the story, it was impossible to put this book down.Such interesting character development and a description of a small English village that was so crystal clear, that one would recognize it immediately if encountered in ones' travels.The characters are at once sympathetic,compassionate and eccentric; certainly each interesting in their way. Since I was fortunate and began reading with no expectations, not having read any reviews, I was delighted to discover this jewel of a book. As for the suprise ending, well I cheated, and looked. Not many authors have the talent to make me do that.

The writing alone makes this book excellent, taking the reader to the winter of 1963 and letting them live it like the characters. Other than the plodding section about the trial (I'm just not one for reading court proccedings. I find them rather dull.) the story flows well. With the exception of Catherine, who's just a little too blah, the cast is fantastic. The story itself is dark and draws the reader in. This is a great read for a cold winter's night.

Having discovered Val McDermid by chance [Impulse buying 'The Torment of Others] I was hooked and wanted more. A place of Execution was the first one I found and, as cliched as it sounds, I could not put this book down. This is one of the most amazing kidnap/murder stories I have ever read . . .

The Story spans some 30 years, is immaculately researched, both into the times past and present with remarkable accuracy to weave a story that puts the reader in the middle of a small isolated rural community with it's associated prejudices, both held and suffered, and at the heart of which the horrendous disappearance of a child takes place. Val McDermid weaves history and fiction together seamlessly, and it occasionally takes a clear effort of will to separate the two. Dating back to the 1960's, the ongoing developments in the Moors Murders cases add to the heat with which the Police are already overburdened to resolve the case, but hampered for much of the way by the secluded and very close-knit attitudes of the local villagers. When the villagers come to their own conclusion and decide to point the Police in the right direction, the victim is found with evidence clearly pointing to one perpetrator. As the case develops further, it reveals even more horiffic evidence of what has been going on for so long in their midst.

In the days when the Death Sentence was still on the UK statute books, justice was harsh and swift and having been served, life tries to return to normal. 30 Years later, elements of the case resurface and what was once 'rock solid' begins to fall apart. This is not a typical miscarriage of justice case - the wrong man convicted - on the contrary, it sometimes shows how little the guilty have gotten away with, amid the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

This is one of Val McDermid's best books so far with solid characters who help soak the reader into the story and carry them along to it's chilling conclusion. It's impossible to read this book without drawing on our own prejudices and politics that leave us with much to think about once it's over.

This is not a blood-and-guts story, on the contrary, at times it can be chilling, gut-wrenchingly emotional and allows us a glimpse of other people's pain in what might be one of the most frightening events that any community should hope it never has to face.

If you have never read one of Val McDermid's books, THIS is one to try - It's one of her most engrossing. I've made this recommendation to so many people; nobody has ever come back and disagreed.

I am not usually satisfied with framing devices, the technique whereby the main plot is inserted within a narrative recounted years or decades later. Barbara Vine is the undoubted master of this device in the mystery genre and others rarely meet the challenge. Val McDermid, however, gives Vine a run for her money in "A Place of Execution." The tale involves a horrific crime perpetrated in the 1960s that reverberates decades later: the disappearance of a beautiful adolescent girl in a feudal-style village amidst a rash of other disappearances. The crime baffles local police, partly because a blizzard buries much potential evidence. The tightly-knit villagers' taciturnity adds an additional impediment to the investigation. A trial proceeds, without a corpus dilecti, but with an execution, as promised by the title.
Nearly four decades later, new evidence surfaces and the major players in the earlier mystery must confront the heirs and descendants of the victims in a shocking denoument.
I have read several novels by McDermid, including "Mermaids Singing" and "Killing the Shadows," but this one remains my favorite so far. I'm looking forward to reading her other novels and have already added her to my pantheon of favorite mystery novelists: Ruth Rendell, Patricial Highsmith, Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter, Robert Baranrd, P.D. James, Minette Walters and Elizabeth George

A Place of Execution is an exceptionally well crafted mystery. The setting is a remote English village where a beautiful 13 year old girl has gone missing. George Bennett, the detective in charge of the investigation, is detrmined to find her and later, when it appears she has been murdered, equally determined to bring her killer to justice. The ultimate resolution is believable, satisfying, and haunting. Highly recommended.

I read A Place of Execution about three years ago, when it was first published. I had tried reading Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid, and just could not get into it. It was just too gory, too bloody for me. But I had heard such great things about A Place of Execution, I decided to give it a try. Wow! I could not put it down, I was so completely captivated by this mystery. McDermid really knows how to sweep the reader along--she creates memorable characters and creates a real sense of ambiance. Although the ending stretches one's sense of disbelief, it was a satisfying conclusion to a mesmerizing read. I've read McDermid's stand-alone mysteries since, and while I love them all (though I still have no desire to plunge into Mermaids Singing again), this one is my favorite read. I still think about it. I'm glad McDermid is gaining fans on this side of the Atlantic--she deserves acclaim from mystery lovers who crave intelligent reads.