Book Review - A Place Of Execution by Val McDermid

Author Val McDermid begins A Place Of Execution with a short introduction from fictitious writer Catherine Heathcote. We are told that London based journalist Catherine is researching and planning to write a book about Detective Inspector George Bennett’s first murder case that took place 35 years earlier. Catherine plans to speak to everybody possible involved and revisit the Derbyshire moorland area close to where she grew up and where she was indirectly affected by parental worry restricting her freedom because a girl her age had disappeared.

Following the introduction the larger part of the novel details the 1963 murder investigation, the conclusion to the case and the murder trial. The second part is set in 1998 and Catherine comes into the novel for the first time living in the area for 6 months while researching. We follow her visits to meet George and some of the others involved and the book closes with an interesting twist.

THE CASE

On a bitterly cold evening in December 1963 Inspector George Bennett is called in to investigate the disappearance of 13 year old Alison Carter. George is young and one of a new breed of University trained police officers. He is new to the job, it’s his first big case in charge and he needs to prove himself. Tommy Clough the Detective Sergeant investigating the case with George, drinks a lot but still has a better record than most for arrests. He seems a surly type, tough, not as sensitive as George and ideal to play good cop bad cop with.

Alison lives in the manor house of a tiny hamlet of 7 cottages with her mother Ruth and stepfather Philip Hawkin. The hamlet of Scardale is situated on the Derbyshire moors and shut off from the rest of the world by a gate on the narrow hillside road. Apart from Hawkin who inherited the house from his uncle a year earlier the rest of the villagers are mainly descended from 3 families who are all related to each other through marriage and have lived a mainly insular life for centuries.

One afternoon in December 1963 Alison came home from school and took her dog Shep out for a walk in the fields as usual. She doesn’t return home and the alarm is raised several hours later. Normally because Scardale is so isolated and everybody knows each other it’s felt to be a safe place. Only around 20 miles away and a few weeks beforehand two children Pauline Reade and John Kilbride had gone missing without trace. That was before Brady and Hindley were caught and a child disappearing so close to the others would obviously be possibly linked.

George and Tommy visit the manor house before starting the search and question worried mother Ruth and her husband Philip. You can empathise with Ruth and imagine what it feels like to be in her position, but she does seem far more controlled than you would expect of a mother who has lost a child. Philip you dislike from the start. This man is more interested in his dinner being on the table and shows little concern for the missing teenager or her mother. You want him to be the guilty party because of his callousness, but could somebody so self-centred have a reason for abducting and murdering a teenager I wondered.

A search with tracker dogs starts and not long afterwards Shep is found tied up unharmed but with elastoplast muzzling him. That points to a planned crime and the abductor being somebody Alison knows because the dog wouldn’t let a stranger use elastoplast on him without fighting back and making enough noise to alert the villagers.
Signs of a struggle are found in a Spinney and dashing hopes, some of Alisons blood soaked clothing is discovered several days later in a place that had been forgotten except to one villager.

During the days following the disappearance the villagers are questioned and are found to be distrusting and obstructive. Getting information out of them is frustrating for the police who would normally expect relatives to want to help more. They blame it on the insular way of life but the lack of leads and only being told what the villagers want them to know delays the inquiry and the longer it goes on the less the chances are of Alison being found alive and especially if she is out in the open. You are made to wonder if one of the villagers is responsible for Alison’s disappearance and if the rest are covering up for him or her.

The case almost becomes a crusade to George, especially as he has just discovered that his wife Ann is expecting their first child. It becomes more personal to him as he can now imagine how he would feel if it was his child that had been taken. George came across as a sensitive caring man, but a little bit too easily swayed by what he wants to believe to be a good detective.

National journalist Don Smart tries to link this case to the other disappearances despite being told that there are differences with this case. George hates the sensationalism that could harm the case and turn public opinion against him if he isn’t seen to be collaborating with the other police forces that he feels is a waste of time better spent on his investigation and not being sidetracked. I hadn’t thought about that angle and how much the press can affect a serious inquiry, but if the police have to be so careful of public opinion it can’t be easy. Much more help to George is a responsible local newspaper printing a full page poster of Alison and including it with every issue.

WHAT I THINK

What I didn’t like about this novel was the fictitious association with the moors murders. Maybe it’s just me but whenever I read something about the murders in a newspaper or book I find it distasteful. These were real children who were treated dreadfully, they have families who loved them and I’m sure it must be hard for them to see the murders being continuously dredged up and usually for gain or sensationalism. In this story the murders were used to make Alison’s disappearance more harrowing if it could be and to suggest from the start that Alison had been killed.

Val McDermid doesn’t overdo it with descriptions of places but even so I could picture the tiny hamlet and bleak wintry countryside surrounding it. It was bitterly cold and I could imagine the cold despite reading the book on a warm sunny day. I went back to 1963 and remembered how just one room would be heated and how just going a few yards into another unheated room could be painfully cold.

Alison liked her music and in her bedroom was a record player and records that her stepfather had bought her. Just like most teenagers back then she loved the Beatles, Cliff Richards and the Shadows and other popstars of the time. One of the things said in the book was that Alison’s favourite pin up was Dennis Tanner from Coronation Street. There was no TV reception in the valley so to my mind Alison would have been unlikely to have a soap star for a pin up. I smiled at the mention of Kraft Dairylea triangles. I had forgotten that these were around in the 60s when I was a child and I felt that little additions like this worked well in setting the 1963 scene.

As often happens in crime novels nowadays a paedophile and his gruesome photograph collection is part of the story. Just how much I cannot say, but be warned if you cannot bear to read about something so disgusting.

Although the last part slowed in pace I found the main part of the 404 page novel totally gripping and so readable that I had finished it within a day. I guessed most of the end of the story quite early on but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. I like an ending where not everything is as it seems and although skilfully written there were a few small clues along the way.

When I saw that the main part was a narrative by an invented author I thought it strange and unnecessary at first. Once I had finished the novel I could see that the idea worked well as a way of introducing another character and bringing the story forward in time.

This is the second book that I have read by this author and I found it just as good except for the use of the moors murders to heighten feeling - personal distaste but it knocked it down a bit in my estimation. Apart from that I highly recommend this novel and will be reading more of Val McDermid’s work in the future.

by Patricia Jones - 2nd June 2003

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