Death by Election - Softcover

Hall, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903552516 ISBN 13: 9781903552513

Publisher: Back-In-Print Books Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

By-election fever has gripped the constituency of Bradfield, and the national media circus has descended on the town - or so it seems to Laura Ackroyd, the reporter from the local newspaper who knows the town and its politics a great deal better than the self-styled experts hot off the train from London. Laura Ackroyd is not only assigned to cover Richard Thurston and his campaign, but is also expected to follow up other news: such as the police investigation into the discovery of an unidentified body on the moors; the student campaign to 'out' various public figures; and the hints of some dirty dealings in the corridors of the town hall. As Laura peels away the veneer of each story, she discovers a tangle of old and new indiscretions, emotional blackmail and a disturbing amount of violence, and when the latter is turned against herself, she becomes aware that there is a common thread to all these matters which leads to the main players taking a murderous road to Westminster. In an intriguing mystery, which is as much whydunnit as whodunnit, the spotlight of publicity turns out to be a curtain-raiser on a scandal which proves physically and politically fatal to the villain and victim."

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

The death of the long-ailing Member for Bradfield launches sociologist Richard Thurston, his heir-apparent, into the political limelight. But another, more sinister death the same day--the murder of AIDS-stricken Harvey Lingard, Richard's old student who's come home from London to a nearby village to die (though not as soon as he did)--casts Richard's candidacy into the gravest peril. Jason Carpenter, head of the local Gay and Lesbian Front, has compiled a list of gay public figures the Front plans to out, and Richard, who's had affairs with both Harvey and Jason, heads the list. The police are convinced that Richard, who's been submitting to blackmail for years, not only killed Harvey but also offed features writer Rob Stevens, who was covering the Front's activities while trying to keep his own sexual orientation secret. Inspector Michael Thackeray is only waiting until after the election to arrest him. So it's up to Rob's editor, Laura Ackroyd, who studied with Harvey under Richard, to dig up whatever evidence she can that exonerates Richard--and keep his fading hopes of election for Bradfield alive. Though she never decides whether Laura is a detective or a spin doctor, Hall (The Poison Pool, 1993) produces a satisfyingly ugly study of English local politics. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

That quintessentially British institution, the brief, hotly contested by-election, forms the background for Hall's drama, in which an explosive combination of electoral and sexual politics engenders blackmail, suicide, and murder. Two complex protagonists are at the center of the tale: enigmatic Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray, newly arrived in Bradfield in the north of England, and city native Laura Ackroyd, a reporter for a Tory paper who is sympathetic to Labour because its parliamentary candidate was her college sociology tutor--and because her beloved grandmother has long been a party activist. While the local university's Gay and Lesbian Front debates "outing" closeted establishment types, Thackeray investigates the murder on a nearby moor of a former sociology student and the suicide of an eminently respectable Tory leader, and Ackroyd struggles to balance her personal and professional responsibilities. Hall, an investigative reporter and author of The Poisoned Pool (1993), has planted the seeds of a complex, involving series in this thoughtful procedural. Mary Carroll

About this edition

• Publisher: Back-In-Print Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1903552516
• ISBN 13: 9781903552513
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 176