Bones in the Attic, the - Hardcover

Barnard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684873796 ISBN 13: 9780684873794

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

Matt Harper, a television and radio personality and a former professional soccer player, has just bought Elderholm, an old stone house in Leeds in the north of England. It's ideal for him, his partner Aileen, and her three children. Even the attic space seems just right -- the perfect place for a game room or a children's retreat. But as Matt and his decorator tour the property, they find something that will put the attic off-limits for a long time to come: a tiny child's skeleton that has clearly been there for years. What happened to the child, and how did its skeleton get into the attic? Detective Sergeant Charlie Peace and his forensic team think the child's remains have been in the attic for thirty years. Thirty years? Matt remembers that time. It was 1969 and he was seven years old. He was in the neighborhood, spending the summer with an aunt. That was the summer that Elderholm's owner left her house empty when she went to visit a daughter in Australia. What happened that summer? What memories lie deep in Matt's consciousness? Where are the other children from that summer who now, of course, are adults? Who killed the little child and why was he or she never reported missing? And who has now written to Matt, assuring him that he had no part in what occurred, that he had gone home to London before it happened? As Matt struggles to recover his memory of that strange summer, both he and Charlie Peace ponder what it means to love and lose a child and how one thoughtless decision can change a life forever. Richly evocative and deeply poignant, "The Bones in the Attic" is crime writing at its best from one of the great contemporary masters of mystery.

About this title

Review:

Peter Robinson author of "Aftermath" Robert Barnard is one of the best living British crime writers, and in "The Bones in the Attic" he is in top form. This tragic tale of a group of adults haunted by an event from their shared past has all the hallmarks of Mr. Barnard's more recent, darker style: an acute eye for social detail, vivid, deftly drawn characters, and a well-plotted mystery teasingly played out. A must-read.

From the Back Cover:

"Exceptionally well-plotted and written with a stylistic modesty that does the story proud."
'Literary Review'

Moving into an upmarket new home in Leeds, rising radio star Matt Harper is shocked to find the skeleton of a small child in the attic. His grisly discovery takes him back to the summer of 1969, when he lived with his aunt only a few streets away, reawakening dim, disquieting memories from his childhood.

While detective Charlie Peace heads up the nominal police investigation into the bones, Matt revisits the past in an attempt to solve the mystery himself. Tracking down the other members of a gang of local children he'd once belonged to, he gradually unearths a shared secret that has laid buried ever since. Were the bones in the attic the result of a tragic accident, or has time concealed a more sinister truth?

"Barnard never disappoints."
MARCEL BERLINS, 'The Times'

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0684873796
• ISBN 13: 9780684873794
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272