Items related to The Dungeon House (Lake District Mysteries, 7)
"Readers who enjoy British procedurals will find this multidimensional, multigenerational case very satisfying." ―Booklist
The magnificent Dungeon House and gardens overlook Cumbria's remote western coast with its mix of beaches, dunes, and fells, Roman ruins, and nuclear plant. Twenty years ago, the wealthy Whiteleys called it home. But not a happy one. Malcolm Whiteley had begun to disintegrate under financial and emotional pressures. He suspected various men in their social circle of being his wife's lover. After a disastrous party for the neighbours, Lysette told Malcolm their marriage was over. Sadly an old Winchester rifle he had been hiding was at hand...
Fast forward to today. Hannah Scarlett's cold case team is looking into the three-year-old disappearance of Lily Elstone whose father Gray had been Malcolm's accountant. The investigation coincides with yet another disappearance of a teenage girl: Shona Whiteley, daughter of Malcolm's nephew Nigel, who now lives in the Dungeon House despite its tragic history. As Hannah's team digs down into the past, doubts arise about what really happened the night Malcolm killed his wife and 16-year-old daughter Amber, then himself.
Most of the people once close to the Whiteleys still live nearby. And one Joanna Footit, and her secrets, now returns from London. While Hannah leads the complex police inquiries, it is her lover, historian Daniel Kind, who supplies Hannah with the lead that unlocks the whole. Does it come too late?
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime writer whose most recent novel, set in 1930, is Gallows Court. His seventh and most recent Lake District Mystery is The Dungeon House. Earlier books in the series are The Coffin Trail (short-listed for the Theakston's prize for best British crime novel of 2006), The Cipher Garden, The Arsenic Labyrinth (short-listed for the Lakeland Book of the Year award in 2008), The Serpent Pool, and The Hanging Wood.
Martin is a well-known crime fiction critic, and series consultant to the British Library's Crime Classics. His ground-breaking study of the genre between the wars, The Golden Age of Murder, was warmly reviewed around the world, and won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards. His The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books has been nominated for five awards.
A well-known commentator on crime fiction, he has edited 37 anthologies and published diverse non-fiction books, including a study of homicide investigation, Urge to Kill. An expert on crime fiction history, he is archivist of both the Crime Writers' Association and the Detection Club. He was elected eighth President of the Detection Club in 2015, is current Chair of the CWA, and posts regularly to his blog, 'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?'
Review:
Martin is a well-known crime fiction critic, and series consultant to the British Library's Crime Classics. His ground-breaking study of the genre between the wars, The Golden Age of Murder, was warmly reviewed around the world, and won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards. His The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books has been nominated for five awards.
A well-known commentator on crime fiction, he has edited 37 anthologies and published diverse non-fiction books, including a study of homicide investigation, Urge to Kill. An expert on crime fiction history, he is archivist of both the Crime Writers' Association and the Detection Club. He was elected eighth President of the Detection Club in 2015, is current Chair of the CWA, and posts regularly to his blog, 'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?'
At the start of Edwards’s engrossing seventh Lake District mystery (after 2013’s The Frozen Shroud), Malcolm Whiteley, the proprietor of the majestic Dungeon House, is depressed over business problems and enraged at his wife Lysette’s infidelities and her request for a divorce. Following the annual barbecue for family and friends, a drunken Whiteley realizes that he can use his Winchester rifle to resolve these issues. Flash forward 20 years to the present. Det. Chief Insp. Hannah Scarlett’s Cumbria police team is working on the case of Lily Wellstone, a teenage girl who disappeared three years earlier. Lily’s father was Whiteley’s accountant. Coincidence strikes again when the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, Malcolm’s nephew and the Dungeon House’s current occupant, goes missing. Edwards has a way of tangling lives and spinning a cloud of suspicion over several characters, sending readers up and down wonderfully entertaining blind alleys that keep interest high until the unexpected, though slightly anticlimactic, end. (Publishers Weekly)
DCI Hannah Scarlett plays a much larger role in this seventh series entry (after Frozen Shroud) than historian Daniel Kind, and this results in a plot that is more procedural and less historical than previous titles. Hannah, who heads up a cold-case team, is investigating a missing-persons case from three years ago, when two more women disappear. Ties to a decades-old love-triangle murder surface, seeming to bind the three investigations and encouraging Hannah to revisit the earlier murder. Her relationship with Daniel simmers in the background as she decides whether to move into her own home and out of Daniel's. Set against the atmospheric backdrop of the remote Cumbrian coast, Edwards's twisted story of greed and obsession is peopled with a wide variety of damaged characters, furthering interest. Much of the plot is revealed through interviews and conversations, giving a slightly subdued tone to even the most harrowing events depicted. VERDICT Fans of Reginald Hill's mysteries will enjoy this riveting combination of history and contemporary mystery. (Sharon Mensing Library Journal)
Past and present... 4½ stars...Twenty years ago, in a drunken fit of jealous rage, Malcolm Whiteley shot his wife and killed his daughter before turning the gun on himself. Or did he? DCI Hannah Scarlett's old boss was never convinced, but could never find evidence to put anyone else in the frame. Now Hannah and her cold case team are re-investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl three years earlier when another girl goes missing the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, who is now living in his uncle Malcolm's old house, the Dungeon House, where the tragedy took place. Hannah begins to wonder if the three cases might be linked in some way....The first section of the book, almost a lengthy prologue, tells of the lead-up to the killings. Malcolm is convinced his wife is having an affair but doesn't know with whom. He suspects each of their friends in turn and obsessively watches their behaviour to see if he can pick up any signs. The characterisation of this successful and egotistical bully is very well done, and the reader is also introduced to some of the characters, young at the time of the killing, who will re-appear in the present day section....At this stage, I couldn't get up much empathy for any of the characters and didn't really feel invested in their fate. However, when the book jumps to the present, it becomes a very enjoyable read. Hannah is a great character - normal, intelligent, functional. Her interactions with her team are convincing, and I particularly enjoyed the glimpses we got of her relationship with Patrick, the man she is living with. Their dialogue comes over as natural and they are gloriously angst free, both being interested in each other's work and mutually supportive. Refreshing!...This section, the bulk of the book, is split between Hannah's perspective and that of Joanne Footit. Joanne had been friends with Malcolm's daughter and, traumatised after the killings, left the area. But now she's back and hoping to revive her old relationship with Nigel. The way Joanne's character is developed is very clever at first we see her only from her own perspective and then gradually Edwards lets us begin to see her through other people's eyes. She's intriguing, and as she meets up with the people she knew years before she seems to be stirring up old memories that many of them would prefer to leave buried....Edwards creates a good sense of place in the Lake District setting, both in terms of the physical location and of the people who live there. He contrasts the beauty of the scenery with the looming atomic plant at Seascale, using it to help emphasise an atmosphere of growing tension as the story progresses....The plotting is excellent on the whole and, though it goes a little over the top at the end, largely remains well within the bounds of possibility. As one might expect from Edwards, the author and editor of several books on classic crime fiction, there are echoes of the Golden Age mysteries, though brought bang up to date. The small town location means there's a limited cast of suspects and that slightly claustrophobic feeling of everyone knowing too much about their neighbours' business. There are proper clues and Hannah and her team work their way to the solution through the traditional technique of interviewing people so much more interesting (to me) than trying to work out how long it takes for blowflies to invade corpses, etc! I didn't work it out, but when the solution was given I found it credible and satisfying....Overall, well written and strongly plotted with some excellent characterisation Hannah is a detective I will enjoy meeting again. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up. (NetGalley)
Dungeon House, on the remote western coast of Cumbria, is a grand mansion, home to Malcolm Whiteley and his family. Malcolm has unfortunately fallen on hard times, thanks to some business reversals. His drinking is out of control, and he is sure that his lovely wife, Lysette, is having an affair, despite her denials. When Malcolm's annual party for the neighbors turns into a disaster, Lysette has had enough and tells Malcolm she's leaving. He grabs his trusty Winchester rifle and shoots her and himself. Their daughter, Amber, turns up dead in a ditch in the garden. Twenty years later, Hannah Scarlett, head of the cold-case team, is investigating the disappearance of Lily Elstone, a local teen whose father was once Malcolm's accountant. Another teenage girl, Shona Whiteley, the daughter of Malcolm's nephew, who now lives in Dungeon House, also vanishes. The connection between these cases reveals a complex network of family dysfunction and deceit. Readers who enjoy British procedurals will find this multidimensional, multigenerational case very satisfying (Booklist)
Two decades ago in coastal Cumbria, affluent Malcolm and Lysette Whiteley host their annual gala for friends and family at Dungeon House. Instead of joy at their party, Malcom is disheartened from his business in trouble and irate at Lysette's not very discrete affairs. Her demand for a divorce sends intoxicated Malcom over the edge; he ponders whether to include their sixteen year old daughter in his murder-suicide....Three years ago, fourteen years old Lily Elstone vanished while riding her bike. That case turned cold until yesterday; fifteen years old Shona Whiteley failed to arrive at a friend's sleepover. Cumbria Cold Case Review consultant (and retired cop) Les Bryant briefs Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett and Detective Chief Maggie Eyre on the key link between the two teen disappearances: Lily's father Gray was the accountant to Shona's infamous great Uncle Malcolm....The seventh Lake District police procedural (see The Frozen Shroud, The Serpent Pool and The Hanging Wood) is a fabulous investigation that deftly ties together a twenty-year old horrible tragedy, a cold case disappearance and a missing person's inquiry. Filled with terse suspense as Scarlett fears time is running out for Shona, Martin Edwards writes a terrific mystery anchored by a deep cast desperately searching for the missing teen. (Midwest Book Review)
In his seventh Lake District mystery (The Frozen Shroud, 2013, etc.), Edwards shows that a troubled local family can rename the Dungeon House as Ravenglass Knoll, but they can't erase its violent past or prevent a recurrence of the same fatal passions. Twenty years ago, Malcolm Whiteley, who ran a highly questionable waste management firm, had questions of his own about Lysette, the first love he'd married. So convinced was Malcolm that Lysette was betraying him with someone―maybe Gray Elstone, Malcolm's accountant; maybe Robbie Dean, the former football player who'd killed his girlfriend, Carrie North, in a careless car accident; maybe Scott Durham, the neighbor who was giving her painting lessons; maybe Nigel Whiteley, the son of Malcolm's estranged, cancer-stricken brother Ted, a boy reputed to fancy older women―that it was practically certain he'd kill one of them sooner or later. Instead, according to the evidence, he shot Lysette, then chased after their beloved daughter, Amber, and threw her off a cliff, and finally stuck the gun in his own mouth. Finis―until DCI Hannah Scarlett, of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, is asked to look once more into the case at the very moment that Joanna Footit, a former girlfriend of Nigel's who was seriously traumatized in the same accident that killed Carrie North and crippled Robbie Dean, decides that it would be a perfect time to return to Dungeon House, Malcolm's home, which Nigel has inherited and christened Ravenglass Knoll, and look up her old friends and neighbors. Let's just say that Hannah's labors are crowned with greater success than Joanna's. Despite the gap of all those years, Edwards works exceptionally close to his characters. So every complication he piles on so generously comes with a fresh sting, even if many readers will be left more bemused than challenged by this intricate puzzler. (Kirkus Reviews)
DCI Hannah Scarlett plays a much larger role in this seventh series entry (after Frozen Shroud) than historian Daniel Kind, and this results in a plot that is more procedural and less historical than previous titles. Hannah, who heads up a cold-case team, is investigating a missing-persons case from three years ago, when two more women disappear. Ties to a decades-old love-triangle murder surface, seeming to bind the three investigations and encouraging Hannah to revisit the earlier murder. Her relationship with Daniel simmers in the background as she decides whether to move into her own home and out of Daniel's. Set against the atmospheric backdrop of the remote Cumbrian coast, Edwards's twisted story of greed and obsession is peopled with a wide variety of damaged characters, furthering interest. Much of the plot is revealed through interviews and conversations, giving a slightly subdued tone to even the most harrowing events depicted. VERDICT Fans of Reginald Hill's mysteries will enjoy this riveting combination of history and contemporary mystery. (Sharon Mensing Library Journal)
Past and present... 4½ stars...Twenty years ago, in a drunken fit of jealous rage, Malcolm Whiteley shot his wife and killed his daughter before turning the gun on himself. Or did he? DCI Hannah Scarlett's old boss was never convinced, but could never find evidence to put anyone else in the frame. Now Hannah and her cold case team are re-investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl three years earlier when another girl goes missing the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, who is now living in his uncle Malcolm's old house, the Dungeon House, where the tragedy took place. Hannah begins to wonder if the three cases might be linked in some way....The first section of the book, almost a lengthy prologue, tells of the lead-up to the killings. Malcolm is convinced his wife is having an affair but doesn't know with whom. He suspects each of their friends in turn and obsessively watches their behaviour to see if he can pick up any signs. The characterisation of this successful and egotistical bully is very well done, and the reader is also introduced to some of the characters, young at the time of the killing, who will re-appear in the present day section....At this stage, I couldn't get up much empathy for any of the characters and didn't really feel invested in their fate. However, when the book jumps to the present, it becomes a very enjoyable read. Hannah is a great character - normal, intelligent, functional. Her interactions with her team are convincing, and I particularly enjoyed the glimpses we got of her relationship with Patrick, the man she is living with. Their dialogue comes over as natural and they are gloriously angst free, both being interested in each other's work and mutually supportive. Refreshing!...This section, the bulk of the book, is split between Hannah's perspective and that of Joanne Footit. Joanne had been friends with Malcolm's daughter and, traumatised after the killings, left the area. But now she's back and hoping to revive her old relationship with Nigel. The way Joanne's character is developed is very clever at first we see her only from her own perspective and then gradually Edwards lets us begin to see her through other people's eyes. She's intriguing, and as she meets up with the people she knew years before she seems to be stirring up old memories that many of them would prefer to leave buried....Edwards creates a good sense of place in the Lake District setting, both in terms of the physical location and of the people who live there. He contrasts the beauty of the scenery with the looming atomic plant at Seascale, using it to help emphasise an atmosphere of growing tension as the story progresses....The plotting is excellent on the whole and, though it goes a little over the top at the end, largely remains well within the bounds of possibility. As one might expect from Edwards, the author and editor of several books on classic crime fiction, there are echoes of the Golden Age mysteries, though brought bang up to date. The small town location means there's a limited cast of suspects and that slightly claustrophobic feeling of everyone knowing too much about their neighbours' business. There are proper clues and Hannah and her team work their way to the solution through the traditional technique of interviewing people so much more interesting (to me) than trying to work out how long it takes for blowflies to invade corpses, etc! I didn't work it out, but when the solution was given I found it credible and satisfying....Overall, well written and strongly plotted with some excellent characterisation Hannah is a detective I will enjoy meeting again. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up. (NetGalley)
Dungeon House, on the remote western coast of Cumbria, is a grand mansion, home to Malcolm Whiteley and his family. Malcolm has unfortunately fallen on hard times, thanks to some business reversals. His drinking is out of control, and he is sure that his lovely wife, Lysette, is having an affair, despite her denials. When Malcolm's annual party for the neighbors turns into a disaster, Lysette has had enough and tells Malcolm she's leaving. He grabs his trusty Winchester rifle and shoots her and himself. Their daughter, Amber, turns up dead in a ditch in the garden. Twenty years later, Hannah Scarlett, head of the cold-case team, is investigating the disappearance of Lily Elstone, a local teen whose father was once Malcolm's accountant. Another teenage girl, Shona Whiteley, the daughter of Malcolm's nephew, who now lives in Dungeon House, also vanishes. The connection between these cases reveals a complex network of family dysfunction and deceit. Readers who enjoy British procedurals will find this multidimensional, multigenerational case very satisfying (Booklist)
Two decades ago in coastal Cumbria, affluent Malcolm and Lysette Whiteley host their annual gala for friends and family at Dungeon House. Instead of joy at their party, Malcom is disheartened from his business in trouble and irate at Lysette's not very discrete affairs. Her demand for a divorce sends intoxicated Malcom over the edge; he ponders whether to include their sixteen year old daughter in his murder-suicide....Three years ago, fourteen years old Lily Elstone vanished while riding her bike. That case turned cold until yesterday; fifteen years old Shona Whiteley failed to arrive at a friend's sleepover. Cumbria Cold Case Review consultant (and retired cop) Les Bryant briefs Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett and Detective Chief Maggie Eyre on the key link between the two teen disappearances: Lily's father Gray was the accountant to Shona's infamous great Uncle Malcolm....The seventh Lake District police procedural (see The Frozen Shroud, The Serpent Pool and The Hanging Wood) is a fabulous investigation that deftly ties together a twenty-year old horrible tragedy, a cold case disappearance and a missing person's inquiry. Filled with terse suspense as Scarlett fears time is running out for Shona, Martin Edwards writes a terrific mystery anchored by a deep cast desperately searching for the missing teen. (Midwest Book Review)
In his seventh Lake District mystery (The Frozen Shroud, 2013, etc.), Edwards shows that a troubled local family can rename the Dungeon House as Ravenglass Knoll, but they can't erase its violent past or prevent a recurrence of the same fatal passions. Twenty years ago, Malcolm Whiteley, who ran a highly questionable waste management firm, had questions of his own about Lysette, the first love he'd married. So convinced was Malcolm that Lysette was betraying him with someone―maybe Gray Elstone, Malcolm's accountant; maybe Robbie Dean, the former football player who'd killed his girlfriend, Carrie North, in a careless car accident; maybe Scott Durham, the neighbor who was giving her painting lessons; maybe Nigel Whiteley, the son of Malcolm's estranged, cancer-stricken brother Ted, a boy reputed to fancy older women―that it was practically certain he'd kill one of them sooner or later. Instead, according to the evidence, he shot Lysette, then chased after their beloved daughter, Amber, and threw her off a cliff, and finally stuck the gun in his own mouth. Finis―until DCI Hannah Scarlett, of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, is asked to look once more into the case at the very moment that Joanna Footit, a former girlfriend of Nigel's who was seriously traumatized in the same accident that killed Carrie North and crippled Robbie Dean, decides that it would be a perfect time to return to Dungeon House, Malcolm's home, which Nigel has inherited and christened Ravenglass Knoll, and look up her old friends and neighbors. Let's just say that Hannah's labors are crowned with greater success than Joanna's. Despite the gap of all those years, Edwards works exceptionally close to his characters. So every complication he piles on so generously comes with a fresh sting, even if many readers will be left more bemused than challenged by this intricate puzzler. (Kirkus Reviews)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPoisoned Pen Press
- Publication date2015
- ISBN 10 1464203199
- ISBN 13 9781464203190
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages432
- Rating
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