The Chalon Heads
A Brock and Kolla Mystery
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4.3 • 9 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
When the Daily Mirror called The Chalon Heads “one of the best-crafted, best-plotted, and most convincing British thrillers for decades,” you knew it had to be good. David Brock and Kathy Kolla are summoned to Cabot’s, a venerable dealer in rare stamps on the Strand, and at first they expect a simple case of theft and a pleasant digression from the usual sort of murderous wrongdoing they encounter in the Serious Crime Branch of Scotland Yard. But the case they confront is twistier and far more unsettling than they could have imagined.
An unsavory figure from Brock’s past, slippery East-Ender Sammy Starling, aka Sammy China, is in deep trouble and asking for Brock’s help. It seems Sammy’s young wife has been kidnapped; but the strange part is that the ransom notes are decorated with rare and valuable Chalon Head stamps of the young Queen Victoria—to whom Sammy’s wife bears an uncanny resemblance. Sammy is convinced a corrupt cop he once helped put in jail is behind the kidnapping. But Sammy has made a living from fraud and deceit: why should Brock and Kolla trust anything he says?
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this riveting, if flawed, British police procedural, Maitland (The Malcontenta) serves up a plot so deviously complicated it's sometimes hard to follow. Scotland Yard's Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Chief Inspector Brock investigate the kidnapping of Eva, the wife of wealthy philatelist Sammy Starling, a specialist in stamps displaying the young Queen Victoria and called Chalon Heads. (The dust jacket, depicting a stamped envelope of Victorian vintage, is sure to draw stamp collectors.) Sammy, who was a key witness in a police scandal several years earlier, receives ransom notes with rare Chalon Head stamps glued on the pages and hence made worthless. The final ransom note demands a unique Canadian philatelic item, which is to be sold at auction. After Sammy buys and delivers it, he receives a grisly, if thematically fitting, present. The subsequent autopsy is not for the squeamish. Suspense builds as the fraud squad enters the case, while the author's psychological insights into his characters add further interest. The ending crowds together several long and surprisingly articulate confessions, one by a woman who had been incoherent only minutes before she tells all. Readers may wonder just who did what to whom. Although parts of the narrative read as though written at different times and stitched together with the seams showing, Maitland's intricate tale never fails to grip. 5-city author tour.FYI:Born in Scotland and raised in London, John Creasy Award nominee and Ned Kelly Prize winner Maitland now lives in Australia.
