The Dead of Winter - Hardcover

Airth, Rennie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670020931 ISBN 13: 9780670020935

Publisher: Viking Pr, 2009

Synopsis

A former police investigator tries to solve the murder of his employee, Rosa Novak, following clues through war-torn Europe in 1944, and discovers a connection between the victim, a murdered Parisian furrier, a member of the Resistance, and stolen diamonds.

About this title

Review:

Slowly but surely, Rennie Airth has been building a reputation as one of the most solid and accomplished practitioners of the intelligent crime thriller, with an ironclad combination of adroit storytelling skills and carefully wrought characterisation (something of a speciality for this author). The Dead of Winter is the latest example of Airth's finely-honed art, and is as impressive and involving as such predecessors as Rivers of Darkness and The Blood-Dimmed Tide, (the first two parts of this trilogy).

We are once again in the company of troubled copper John Madden, the time period having moved on from the first books to the Second World War. It is the time of Churchill’s radio broadcasts, the blackout and the ever-present threat of V2 bombs. Near the British Museum in London, a young woman refugee from war-torn Poland is killed. She had been engaged as a landgirl on a farm where she had won the affection of the farmer and his wife -- and that farmer is John Madden, no longer utilising his detection skills for Scotland Yard. But he is prepared to aid his ex-comrades in this disturbing situation, and utilises his still-keen expertise to dig into the murder. Madden becomes aware that the killer is almost certainly a professional hitman. Why did he murder his Polish victim? It’s up to John Madden to construct a plausible case from a slender assortment of clues – and, what’s more, in the face of considerable personal danger.

Those who read Rennie Airth’s earlier books will need little persuasion to pick The Dead of Winter up; and new readers will be entranced by the carefully constructed narrative and strong sense of period. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

'The author's fine sense of time and place bring 1940's England to life.'
-- Choice

'The well-crafted writing and plot development make it a page-turner despite the slow pace.'
-- Herald Express (Torquay)

'What engages one [is]...the narrative, his observation of the natural world and his gift for striking imagery.'
-- The Oldie

`A superlative detective novel from a writer who creates complicated narratives populated by fully realised characters. He has an enviable ability to evoke rural landscape as well as teeming metropolitan life, particularly the menace of a London perpetually shrouded by darkness. Airth's John Madden novels are must-reads.' -- Daily Express

`Airth's atmosphere of London at war is superb'
-- The Times

`Rennie Airth's atmospheric The Dead of Winter is set in London during the second world war...the novel recreates wartime London brilliantly, and Airth's detectives have to cope with flying bombs and blacked-out streets as they struggle to find the killer.' -- Sunday Times

`This is an energetic and entertaining thriller, with a denouement which rises to a frightening climax.'
-- Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0670020931
• ISBN 13: 9780670020935
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 408