Some Deaths Before Dying
A Crime Novel
-
- £6.99
-
- £6.99
Publisher Description
In this crime fiction masterwork from CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson, a dying old woman determined to solve a family mystery before the end of her life finds herself reopening doors into a dark and very dangerous past
Once a talented photographer, Rachel Matson is now old, paralyzed, bedridden, and dying—yet her wits remain as sharp as a well-stropped straight razor. Watching television to keep her mind focused, she is shocked to see a woman on Antiques Roadshow asking to have an old pistol appraised—a firearm Rachel is certain once belonged to her late husband.
Though confined to her bedroom and barely able to communicate with the outside world, Rachel is determined to figure out how and why a treasured family heirloom wound up in a stranger’s possession. With the help of her old photographs, her devoted nurse, Dilys, and Jenny, the sweet young lady from the telly, Rachel sets out to unravel this last mystery before the end comes. But the answers she seeks are waiting for her in the darkest shadows of a past best left unexplored and in shocking family secrets that, by rights, should remain locked away forever.
P. D. James has called Peter Dickinson “a master” and “a true original.” Acclaimed worldwide for his stylistic flair, his unique storytelling genius, and his remarkable penchant for reconfiguring British crime fiction, Dickinson once again offers the mystery reader something fresh and surprising with his final novel, Some Deaths Before Dying.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
His first mystery in five years gives ample evidence that Dickinson, an award-winning storyteller whose first novel was published in 1968, can still entrance readers with superbly drawn tales. He knows how to construct an atmospheric English country house mystery as do few other contemporary writers, and he can build a complex plot as skillfully as ever. An old woman, Rachel Matson, is paralyzed and slowly dying, but the mind inside her wasted body is as sharp as ever. She discovers one day that one of a pair of antique dueling pistols, which she had given her late husband, is missing. Her husband had been the colonel of an army regiment that was taken prisoner by the Japanese in WWII and used as slave labor. The men who survived the war have forged strong bonds, and their lives remain intertwined. Before her illness, Rachel had chronicled her life and her marriage in photographs; she was an artist who documented the reality around her. Now she must use her old photographs and her observational skills to discover why the pistol is missing and how its disappearance may connect to a secret that has been hidden for many years. Dickinson has long been known for creating subtle and meticulously detailed portraits of eccentric characters. In this novel, he depicts a family possessing courage, talent and wealth, but whose members are obsessed with an old crime that has haunted their lives. This beautifully crafted and highly original English mystery should bring new fans to an exceptional writer.