Val McDermid: A Place of Execution

Val McDermid

A Place of Execution

Christina says:

In the remote village of Scardale in Derbyshire in the North of England 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes during a walk with her dog. The police feverishly search for the girl, but as day after day goes by without a trace of her hopes of finding her alive dwindle. Detective Inspector George Bennett who for the first time heads such an important investigation and his colleague Sergeant Tommy Clough don’t give up although the villagers don’t trust them. And their efforts are not in vain. Still the case doesn’t come to a satisfying conclusion, because Alison’s body is never found.

After 35 years of silence about the Carter case Bennett agrees to talk to journalist Catherine Heathcote who grew up in Derbyshire and wants to write a book about the disappearance of Alison Carter. But just as the book is ready Bennett makes a discovery that causes him to desperately try to stop the book from being published.

Val McDermid set her story in an interesting environment. In the Sixties Scardale, a village in a hard to reach valley, was like an island. Young police officer George Bennett isn’t taken seriously by his colleagues because instead of rising through the ranks of the police he entered the service on a higher level after graduating from university. McDermid describes how Bennett gets more and more obsessed with the case and misleads him just as she misleads the reader, and when you finally believe you have the answer she presents you with a solution that surpasses your wildest speculations.

With her second protagonist Catherine Heathcote McDermid created an interesting character who explains how a crime like the Alison Carter case affects people who are not directly involved. A former journalist herself McDermid stresses how important the cooperation between police and press is and doesn’t hesitate to criticize her own profession, although she makes quite clear that not all journalists are like Don Smart, the smarmy tabloid writer in her book.

A PLACE OF EXECUTION is a stand-alone and very different in tone from McDermid’s award-winning THE MERMAIDS SINGING. The pace of the narrative is calmer and especially in the first part that is set in the Sixties the events drag along a bit, probably because the author didn’t want to let the reader to get too close to the final solution. A PLACE OF EXECUTION still is a gripping psychological thriller.

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Christina Gross

Last changes: 02-09-03