"The brutal murder of an estate-owning Police and Crime Commissioner provides the compelling context for this dark, suspenseful crime thriller."
Though its setting is idyllically rural, Nick Louth’s The Hanging Place, a Detective Jan Talantire novel, is no cosy crime caper. Rather, it’s a darkly creepy thriller: gory with a gothic edge, and riddled with complexities that see Talantire’s investigative skills tested to the max.
It begins with a theft at Bychecombe Manor, which is owned by Police and Crime Commissioner Lionel Hall-Hartington (Bagpuss to his wife), a man who’s ruffled more than a few local feathers. Soon after, Hall-Hartington is found shot dead at the manor, with a trail of bloody footprints indicating that the preparator had blood on their shoes before they entered the building. After following “a gory trail”, Talantire discovers a large Victorian doll “with an outsized head of coarse gingery hair and a wizened face” hanging on the cellar door. In turn, the doll leads to the discovery of the commissioner’s wife suspended from a chain.
The bucolic Exmoor setting, replete with “flower-lined lanes”, provides a stark counterpoint to the darkness that plays out across a well-paced plot, with the investigative trail taking Talantire down multiple metaphoric lanes of inquiry that confound at every turn. A suspenseful page-turner, The Hanging Place comes recommended for fans of character-driven rural crime thrillers, such as novels by Kate Ellis and Rhys Dylan.
| Primary Genre | Crime and Mystery |
| Other Genres: |
Police and Crime Commissioner Lionel Hall-Hartington is shot dead at his farm, alongside one of his employees. His wife is found suspended upside down in an ancient well in the cellar.
DI Jan Talantire is at a loss. There's no clear motive the farm was ransacked but nothing has been taken. There are bloody footprints, but no obvious perpetrator. And the farm's CCTV has been disabled. The only clue they have is a bizarre Victorian-style doll from the wife's collection which was hung on the door to the cellar.
The trail leads Talantire across the country and even further afield. Can she look past her first assumptions and unravel this complicated case?
A dark, page-turning crime thriller from the million-copy bestseller. Perfect for fans of Kate Ellis, Sally Rigby and Elly Griffiths.
The Hanging Place features in the following genres: Crime and Mystery, Thriller and Suspense, Crime and mystery: police procedural, Crime and mystery: women sleuths, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction, Fiction, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction, Crime and mystery: police procedural, Crime and mystery: women sleuths, Thriller and Suspense
The Hanging Place is available in Paperback
The Hanging Place was written by Nick Louth and published by Canelo Crime an imprint of Canelo
The Hanging Place has 313 pages
Yes it is part of Detective Jan Talantire series
£8.99
