Coffin on Murder Street - Softcover

Gwendoline Butler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006471854 ISBN 13: 9780006471851

Publisher: Collins Crime, 1992

Synopsis

The crimes begin in a bizarre fashion. First, a busload of tipsy sightseers, braving London's terror tour, disappears on the notorious 'Murder Street'. Next, a child's stuffed toy is kidnapped, brutalised and buried. For Scotland Yard Inspector John Coffin, things go from odd to alarming when the tour bus is found, all the passengers alive except for one - an armchair crime enthusiast who has been murdered. Worse, the young son of a visiting American actress disappears in the wake of a series of child abductions. But nothing is as it seems, not the people involved, nor the events on Murder Street, which Coffin fears may continue to live up to its bloody history.

About this title

About the Author

Gwendoline Butler writes under her own name and the pseudonym Jennie Melville. Educated at Haberdashers, she read history at Oxford, and later married Dr. Lionel Butler, Principal of Royal Holloway College. She has one daughter. She is a winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger Award. She was also selected as being one of the top two hundred crime writers in the world by "The London Times," She lives in Surrey, England.

From Kirkus Reviews

Big trouble in the Docklands area of London where Chief Commander John Coffin (Coffin and the Paper Man, etc.) heads the Police Force, living nearby in an old church that's been converted into apartments and a theater complex. His neighbor is actress Stella Pinero, longtime friend, onetime lover, who runs the repertory company recently joined by TV and stage actress Nell Casey, just back from the US with small son Tom and nanny Sylvie. Here, Coffin's problems start with the disappearance of a tour bus, passengers aboard, all of them found drugged--and one of them dead- -when the bus surfaces. The fatality is elderly loner Jim Lollard. He lived on Regina Street, whose murderous history and present-day perfidies were his life's work. Then Nell Casey's son is kidnapped, climaxing a series of chilling minor incidents, amid rumors of a known child molester in the area. Days later, Nell vanishes--and Coffin's job is on the line. A hard look into the past uncovers a lurid secret, and teamwork does the rest. Another of Butler's superior procedurals, marked by brisk pacing, a clutch of quirky characters, and an unflagging air of menace. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Collins Crime
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0006471854
• ISBN 13: 9780006471851
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224