No Trace
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Within an unconventional artists' neighbourhood in London, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla are embroiled in their most compelling case yet - three young children have been abducted in as many weeks.
The most recent of these, six-year-old Tracey Rudd, is the daughter of the infamous contemporary artist Gabriel Rudd. Unbelievably, he begins almost immediately to exploit Tracey's abduction as inspiration for a major and controversial new artwork, in the full glare of media attention.
As Tracey's grandparents step in to blame Gabriel for Tracey's disappearance, Brock and Kolla conduct an intensive hunt for the missing children and their kidnappers, who appear to be connected to an eccentric and suspicious community of artists, dealers and collectors.
Kathy tries to decipher the motives of this world where art and reputation might be more highly prized than life while Brock's attention is diverted not only by a personal crisis but also by finding himself in the unwelcome spotlight of a police inquiry.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Maitland's gripping new police procedural to feature DCI David Brock and Det. Sgt. Kathy Kolla (after 2004's The Verge Practice), something evil afflicts a group of artists and assorted hangers-on who live in London's Northcote Square. When six-year-old Tracey Rudd, the daughter of the circle's most famous artist, Gabriel Rudd, goes missing, it appears she's the third girl to fall victim to a kidnapper. Soon two of the three girls are found, one dead and the other nearly so. As various members of this community are killed in horrible ways, Brock and Kolla dig through an intricate web of circumstances, which some readers may find too complex. Maitland, an architect who crafts his prose in accord with the dictum that God is in the details, brings the particular world he depicts unforgettably alive. No one who reads this haunting, unnerving work will ever again think about contemporary artists the same way.