The Black Country (Scotland Yard's Murder Squad) - Hardcover

Grecian, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399159339 ISBN 13: 9780399159336

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2013

Synopsis

Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad returns, in the stunning new historical thriller from the author of the acclaimed national bestseller The Yard.

The British Midlands. It’s called the “Black Country” for a reason. Bad things happen there.

When members of a prominent family disappear from a coal-mining village—and a human eyeball is discovered in a bird’s nest—the local constable sends for help from Scotland Yard’s new Murder Squad. Fresh off the grisly 1889 murders of The Yard, Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith respond, but they have no idea what they’re about to get into. The villagers have intense, intertwined histories. Everybody bears a secret. Superstitions abound. And the village itself is slowly sinking into the mines beneath it.

Not even the arrival of forensics pioneer Dr. Bernard Kingsley seems to help. In fact, the more the three of them investigate, the more they realize they may never be allowed to leave. . . .

About this title

About the Author

ALEX GRECIAN is the national bestselling author of The Yard and the long-running and critically acclaimed graphic novel series Proof. He lives in the Midwest with his wife and son.

Reviews

*Starred Review* In March 1890, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith bring their Murder Squad expertise to the Midlands, where a husband, wife, and son have disappeared; the couple’s three other children, left unscathed, tell conflicting stories about what happened. An eyeball, discovered by a neighbor child, is the only clue. From the beginning, the bleak stage is set: a coal-mining town in winter with its slag heaps and gray snow on glumly shadowed streets that are lined with buildings sinking slowly into deserted mine shafts below. The town’s denizens, taciturn and superstitious, believe Blackhampton is cursed, as the disappearances are followed by an epidemic of violent illness. The suspense grows exponentially while the detectives unearth clues to a bizarre and complicated crime, hoping their forensic specialist, when he arrives, will shed light on the baffling plague and the eyeball’s owner. In contrast to Day’s first case (The Yard, 2012), this second in the series moves at a brisk pace, with surprising plot twists right up to the very end. Grecian’s riveting novel is an intelligent historical thriller similar to Jean Zimmerman’s atmospheric psychological novel The Orphanmaster (2012), and as shocking as David Morrell’s Murder as a Fine Art (2013). --Jen Baker

Edition details

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399159339
• ISBN 13: 9780399159336
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400