CITY READS 2008

A Place of Execution - Val McDermid

13 MARCH - 23 MAY 2008

One City. One Book. One Big Reading Adventure

Beautifully written...it may be that McDermid will write better novels than this in the future, but I do not see how.
Gerald Kaufman, Daily Telegraph

Last year Brighton & Hove celebrated Daphne du Maurier's Gothic mystery Rebecca with three packed months of events, debates, discussions and collective reads.

Now City Reads 2008 proves crime does pay as it invites you to join us in a citywide read of Val McDermid's chilling contemporary crime thriller A Place of Execution. From March 13 to the closing event during May at Brighton Festival, there will be a host of special events, workshops, reading groups and film showings focusing on A Place of Execution and the contemporary crime novel.

It would be a crime not to get involved...

CITY READS EVENTS

Who is it for?
City Reads is for everyone: whether you're an occasional reader or a confirmed bibliophile. It doesn't matter what you do, where you live or what you read: City Reads is about opening up the world of words and ideas to everyone.

How does it work?
It couldn't be simpler. The idea is to get the whole city reading Val McDermid's A Place of Execution between now and the end of May. All you need to do to get involved is pick up a copy from your local library, bookshop or book drop point and start reading ...

About the Book

Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from an isolated Derbyshire hamlet. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation filled with dead ends and closed faces, an outcome that reverberates down the years.

Decades later he finally tells his story to Catherine Heathcote, but just when her book is about to be published, Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information which he refuses to divulge, information that threatens the foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down...

Part psychological profile, part police procedural and part study in gothic atmosphere, A Place of Execution is a taut, masterfully plotted suspense thriller that exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion.

It is a novel about the past and its unforgiving hold on the present; a quest for truth and a study of the manipulation of knowledge. It deals with serious issues and contemporary anxieties:  the desecration of childhood, the abuse of power, sexual violence, capital punishment, vigilantism, and the fine line between justice and vengeance. It also explores our need for community yet our mistrust of strangers. At the same time it highlights the extraordinary reserves of our human resilience.

Above all though A Place of Execution is a cracking good page turner, keeping you guessing till the final curtain as all good crime novels should.

DOWNLOAD A FREE READERS GUIDE HERE