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Sarah Broadhurst's view...
Winner of the CWA 2009 Cartier Diamond Dagger Award.
Set in the early 50s, this is classic detective stuff. Small town life, genteel and drab, atmospherically portrayed this is part of a series which I do feel you will appreciate more if you’ve read the earlier ones. His big historical novel, American Boy, was a Richard and Judy featured title.
Comparison: Peter Robinson, Ruth Rendell, Jacqueline Winspear.
Similar this month: Minette Walters, Ian Rankin.
Who is Sarah Broadhurst ? |
Synopsis
Call The Dying by Andrew Taylor
It is 1955 and the influx of televisions do nothing to relieve the tensions in the deeply conservative town of Lydmouth. Mr Frederick, a television engineer, arrives to sell and adapt the new sets. He comes for two nights and apparently leaves. On the evening of that same day, eccentric Dr Bayswater, a retired GP, is found dead. A gentleman's yellow kid glove, slightly gnawed by rats, is found lying next to his body. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill is drafted in to investigate. It soon becomes apparent that the case is going to be far from straight-forward. Bayswater was not liked, particularly not by his dashing successor, Dr Connolly nor by a local lorry driver with a grudge and a need for money. Meanwhile, Jill Francis has returned after three years to take over as editor of the Gazette. But there is fierce competition from the ruthless Ivor Fuggle’s rival Evening Post and when she is not trying to keep the newspaper afloat she spends her much of her time with Dr Connolly. Nevertheless, despite himself, Thornhill is still in love with her.
Reviews
'How skilfully he recreates the atmosphere of the time through innuendo, attitude and detail rather than dogged description ...Taylor is the master of small lives writ large'
Frances Fyfield, Express on THE SUFFOCATING
'The most underrated crime writer in Britain today'
Val McDermid
'Andrew Taylor is one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting novelist writing on crime in England today'
Harriet Waugh, Spectator
'Taylor is an excellent writer'
The Times
'The people depicted here are real and believable and the drabness and genteel facade of Fifties England is skilfully brought to life. Taylor is, as always, adept at showing the reality beneath the surface'
Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
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Andrew Taylor has been a full-time writer since 1981, and has written over twenty books. He has been described by The Times as 'One of Britain's best writers of psychological suspense.'
Having decided to become a writer at the age of ten, he claims that it was his newly recognised facility for writing stories, teamed with the idea that a writer's life consisted of not wearing a tie to work, that first attracted him to the career. More recently however he has suggested that 'one of the attractions of writing fiction is that it allows you to create your own little universe and play God to your heart's content.' It was the discovery of Sherlock Holmes at the tender of age of eight and earlier yet with Enid Blyton's Hurrah for Little Noddy, that his love for crime novels was incited. 'Another thing I like about crime fiction' he asserts, 'is its lack of pretension. It sets out to entertain - it's fiction with its sleeves rolled up.'
In the years preceding Andrew Taylor's breakthrough in the literary world, he worked as a boat-builder, wages clerk, teacher, librarian, labourer and freelance publisher's editor. Since then, Public Lending Right estimates place his British public library readership in the top one per cent.
His novels include the Dougal and Lydmouth crime series, the psychological thriller The Barred Window and his ground-breaking Roth Trilogy, now published in one volume as Requiem for an Angel. He also reviews and writes about crime fiction, particularly in the Independent
Awards received for his books include the John Creasey Memorial award from the Crime Writer's Association and an Edgar Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America, both for Caroline Minuscule, and the CWA's Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. The Roth Trilogy was adapted into the acclaimed ITV drama 'Fallen Angel'. 'The American Boy' was a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club choice.
He lives in the Forest of Dean with his wife, a photographer, and their two children.
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Book Info
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Categories
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Categories
Crime / Who-dunit
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