Recalled to Life
-
-
4.7 • 3 Ratings
-
-
- £5.49
-
- £5.49
Publisher Description
‘The story is expertly told, skein by skein, with a new knot to be untied just when you think everything is clear’ Sunday Telegraph
1963. It was the year of the Profumo Scandal, the Great Train Robbery, the Kennedy Assassination – and the Mickeldore Hall Murder.
The guests at the Hall that weekend included a Tory minister, a CIA officer, a British diplomat – and Cissy Kohler, a young American nanny who had come to England for love. And love kept her in England for nearly thirty years. In jail. For murder.
Revisiting the case many years later, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel finds his certainty over Cissy’s guilt is shaken – a rare state of affairs. And it looks as if not only is his old boss’s reputation at stake, but his own too…
Reviews
‘Few writers in the genre today have Hill’s gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace’ Donna Leon, Sunday Times
‘The fertility of Hill’s imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality of his literary style never cease to delight’ Val McDermid, Sunday Express
‘An increasingly lyrical and always humorous writer, he is first and foremost an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift’ Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday
‘He is probably the best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world’ Andrew Taylor, Independent
‘Reginald Hill’s novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories entwining’ Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday
About the author
Reginald Hill was brought up in Cumbria and has returned there after many years in Yorkshire. With his first novel, A Clubbable Woman, he was hailed as ‘the crime novel’s best hope’ and twenty years on he has more than fulfilled that promise
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A 1963 murder in Great Britain involving ``a royal, a cabinet minister and an American diplomat'' has repercussions decades later for Det. Supt. Andrew Dalziel and Inspector Peter Pascoe in this dynamic, surprising mystery, their 11th escapade. Shortly after the Profumo scandal rocked England, Pamela Westropp, the wife of a distant cousin of the queen, was killed on a hunting weekend at Mickledore Hall in Yorkshire. Her host and lover Ralph Mickledore was convicted of the crime and hanged, while his alleged accomplice Cissy Kohler, the Westropps' American nanny, was sentenced to life in prison. Nearly 30 years later, the suggestion of new evidence brings about Kohler's release; Dalziel, who was a rookie on the case, enlists Pascoe's help in learning what's behind the current interest. Hill's ( Bones and Silence ) gruff and engaging hero takes on CIA and Home Office figures as he follows Kohler to New York City and Williamsburg, Va., where he unravels the threads of the old crime. Though Hill relies too much on coincidence, the complex plot here sustains interest. The novel's chief rewards, however, are those of character: Dalziel is a brilliant, bearish delight and the supporting players, including a brash black woman CIA agent, provide a constant parade of pleasures. BOMC featured alternate.
