The Gardens Of The Dead
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Elizabeth Glendinning QC has lost faith in the legal system. In an attempt to restore it, she has secretly devised a scheme to bring back to court a guilty man - Graham Riley - whom she had successfully defended some ten years before. As part of an elaborate contingency plan, Elizabeth leaves the unsuspecting Father Anselm with a key to a safety deposit box, to be opened in the event of her death. Three weeks later she is found dead in the East End of London and, once the box has been opened, a chain of events is triggered as if from beyond the grave, leading Anselm to fulfil what Elizabeth has begun.
A powerful portrait of the dark heart of London and a tense thriller, THE GARDENS OF THE DEAD confirms William Brodrick's growing critical reputation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sharply etched characters who owe a lot to the darker side of Dickens lift Brodrick's sequel to his well-received debut, The Sixth Lamentation (2003), which introduced Father Anselm, an English lawyer turned monk. Unfortunately, many of the descriptive scenes a homeless man endlessly sharing toast and hot chocolate with a shrewd London female barrister for whom he acts as an informant, for example start off with poignant power, but eventually become just padding. At the time of her death by heart attack, this highly principled woman, Elizabeth Glendinning, was trying to correct a miscarriage of justice that she and Father Anselm had been involved in when he was still a lawyer. A convicted sex criminal was set free who had always proclaimed his innocence and blamed the crimes on his employer, known only as "The Pieman," whose identity has never been revealed to readers until now. Brodrick has all the right moves, but fewer slices of toast would have made for a tighter plot.
