A Place of Execution
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Sorry to say, but this book failed to grab me. Deadly dull it dragged on to the end with a promise of a final twist which, I found more insulting than surprising. I think the book would have worked better at half the length. To the author's credit she does an excellent job of creating a time and place in the past but the momentum of the story is too slow.
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don't give up!
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Having read several Tony Hill books and really enjoyed them, I found the first two thirds of this book slow going and a bit of a struggle to be honest. Then from the trial onwards it really picked up and the last section, bringing the action into the present, is truly excellent with a twist I did not see coming. I am so pleased I did not give up on this book and carried on when I was thinking of dumping it.I have not given 5 stars because of the slow start but I thoroughly recommend this book.
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A Cracking Read
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I bought this book six years ago and never got arround to reading it. I was bored the other day so I thought I'd give it a go. Once I started reading I honestly could not put this book down. This is the first Val McDermid book I have read.
The book starts off as a typical "who dunnit" murder mystery resulting in a surprising twist at the end that is totally unpredictable.
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Riveting, absorbing, entertaining and satisfying
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Val McDermid has written some outstanding novels (The Torment of Others, Wire in the Blood and Mermaids Singing spring to mind) but somehow, somehow this one probably tops the lot. It is utterly immaculate in its (forgive the pun) execution, in its pace and structure, in its characterisation and in its capacity to surprise and even deceive the reader. I need not go over the summary of the story here as so many others have already done that, but can I just repeat the words of the Daily Telegraph’s Gerald Kaufman, who stated that “It may be that McDermid will write better novels than this in the future, but I do not see how.” I concur with that view absolutely.
For those of you who remember seeing Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ the first time, you will probably recall wanting to see the film all over again immediately, realising at the end that most of what had gone before was not as you had assumed. So it follows that in A Place of Execution, despite admirably detailed accounts of the investigations into the case of a missing teenage girl back in 1963, which in effect come to a seemingly satisfying conclusion three-quarters of the way through the book, the final quarter which unravels itself 35 years later in 1998 manages to completely dismantle our earlier belief that justice had been done and made me want to read the 1960s part of this book again to see if I could have guessed what was coming. Of course, I already knew that there was going to be a twist to this tale and I took much pleasure in taking guesses as to what it would be; a miscarriage of justice was the most obvious, but that cannot be said to be true because for all human reasons other than legal, justice was clearly served even if there were some unexpectedly high prices to be paid, it later emerged, on the part of more than one victim.
This is storytelling at its best. The characters are so real that I feel that I want to contact them and talk about their experiences. I led myself to understand that A Place of Execution is based on a true story, in which case it only serves to underline that truth is invariably stranger and more convincing than fiction. There are some stories that just cannot be made up, and I reckon that this is one of them. Knowing the story was based on real-life events had left this novel on my library shelves at home for more than a year – what a mistake that was, and I discovered this within a handful of pages. It has few flaws, it has been written by a masterful and confident writer at the top of her game and I recommend it without reservation.
If you haven’t read it yet, then do not hesitate : order your copy today. And while you’re at it, buy at least a half-dozen more Val McDermid novels, because in the world of suspense, mystery and crime writing she really has very few peers.
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Truly Excellent, You MUST read!
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I bought this book as something to read when I was on holiday. It was the first time I had ever heard of Val MacDermid, and it won't be the last book of hers that I will read. I found it to be captivating and one of those books that you could'nt put down.
The plot was facinating and the characters were described in so much detail. It one of those few books that I could read over and Over again.
You will not regret buying this book.
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