Eve of Destruction: (A Harry Devlin Mystery) - Hardcover

Edwards, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393046354 ISBN 13: 9780393046359

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998

Synopsis

Martin Edwards . . . writes terrific crime novels about Harry Devlin, a charming but down-at-heel solicitor with bruised emotions, a nice line in self-deprecation, and a penchant for Mersey low-life."—The Guardian When Liverpool solicitor and detective Harry Devlin takes on a client who has been taping his wife's telephone conversations with her lover, he gets more than he bargained for. The first mystery is the identity of Becky's boyfriend, whose voice Harry finds oddly familiar. Then, as a case of adultery slides frighteningly into conspiracy to murder, a trespasser makes a shocking discovery: three dead bodies in a converted church. Who are they? Who has killed them, and why? Trapped in a maze where neither victims nor apparent culprit are who they seem to be, Harry must go into the dark places of the human heart to find the answers.

About this title

Review

Harry Devlin is a likable fellow who loves a mystery. When Stephen Whyatt, a successful British designer of garden mazes, comes to Harry for advice about how to rid himself of an unfaithful wife without jeopardizing the successful landscaping company he co-owns with his violence-prone brother, the Liverpool solicitor's curiosity is piqued. The plot thickens when Harry hears the incriminating tapes that Whyatt has secretly recorded; the voice of Becky Whyatt's lover, with whom she's conspiring to kill her husband, is strangely familiar to Devlin. By the time he places it, both the illicit affair and the incipient murder plot have begun to unravel. Or have they? When Becky herself is found murdered in a gruesome bloodbath, suspicion falls first on Stephen, and then on Becky's first husband. But don't be fooled by the labyrinth into which Devlin is drawn. Eve of Destruction is a tidy little British mystery in which the plot takes second billing to Devlin--a complex, self-deprecating, and slightly down-at-the-heels antihero--who's a lot smarter and more interesting than any of Edwards's other creations. --Jane Adams

About the Author

Martin Edwards is one of Britain's most talented young crime writers, whose atmospheric writing, sharp characterization, and ingenious plotting have won him wide critical acclaim. He is the editor of (and a contributor to) the 1997 Crime Writers' Association anthology Perfectly Criminal and author of several previous detective novels. He lives in Liverpool, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0393046354
• ISBN 13: 9780393046359
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208