The Arsenic Labyrinth (Lake District Mysteries, 3) - Softcover

Edwards, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590584740 ISBN 13: 9781590584743

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2011

Synopsis

"Fans of this increasingly popular series will be in line for this one, and it should be recommended to readers of such similar British authors as Peter Robinson and Sally Spencer." ―Booklist

After ten years, Guy―a drifter with a taste for deception―has returned to Coniston in England's Lake District. Local journalist Tony di Venuto is campaigning to revive interest in the disappearance of Emma Bestwick, and Guy knows what happened to her.

When Guy tips off the newspaperman that Emma will not be coming home, DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, re-opens the old investigation. Her inquiries take her to the Museum of Myth and Legend and to the remote and eerie Arsenic Labyrinth―a series of stone tunnels used to remove arsenic from tin ore.

Meanwhile, historian Daniel Kind is immersing himself in the work of John Ruskin, whose neighbors created the Arsenic Labyrinth. A shocking discovery made against the stunning backdrop of the Lake District in winter makes it clear to Hannah that there is more than one mystery to solve, and she turns to Daniel for help in untangling the secrets of the past....

About 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?'

From Publishers Weekly:

Edwards's crisply written third contemporary mystery set in England's Lake District (after 2005's The Cipher Garden) turns on the unsolved disappearance of Emma Bestwick, a woman who went missing a decade earlier. Guy Koenig, a con man recently released from prison, makes an anonymous phone call about Emma's fate to a local journalist who has just revisited her story. DCI Hannah Scarlett, who headed the original inquiry, now focuses her cold case squad on the matter. The predictable police procedure—reinterviewing relatives and friends of the missing woman—gets underway, making little progress until the police receive a tip as to the location of Emma's body. Edwards injects cryptic excerpts of another murder mystery into the narrative and rounds out the story with hints of a frustrated attraction between Hannah and historian Daniel Kind, whose father, Ben, was her mentor. Though the suspense and resolution of the secondary mystery distract from Emma's story, this is solid fare for fans of modern British police procedurals. (Jan.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1590584740
• ISBN 13: 9781590584743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304