The Coffin Tree (Thorndike Large Print General Series) - Softcover

Butler, Gwendoline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786204567 ISBN 13: 9780786204564

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 1996

Synopsis

Commander John Coffin investigates the deaths of two policemen, and the apparent suicide of a police officer’s wife. A darkly authentic crime novel from one of the most highly praised English mystery writers, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.

The Coffin Tree grew in a garden in London. It had been struck by lightning, which would have killed most trees – but not this one. Near it, a shrouded body has been burnt. Had the victim voluntarily climbed on to the fire, as one eyewitness reports?

That same summer, two of Coffin's young detectives died – deaths that were said to be accidental. In Coffin's view, however, two accidents are two too many.

Commander John Coffin is not a fanciful man, but somehow the half-dead tree, its top killed by lightning, standing in a sad patch of rough earth, seems to him to epitomise his problems. Why did the two policemen die? How did one dead police officer's wife come to die a grisly death herself at the foot of the coffin tree?

Coffin can't believe that it was suicide, but in his efforts to solve the crimes, he is forced to question his own judgement, and to confront the mysteries of another human heart.

About this title

Review

‘Gwendoline Butler is excellent on the bizarre fantasies of other people’s lives and on modern paranoia overlaying old secrets; and her plots have the rare ability to shock’
Andrew Taylor, Independent

‘Butler distils her own brand of disquiet: omnipresent and irresistible’ Sunday Times

‘Gwendoline Butler writes detective novels that both in method and atmosphere are things apart... she achieves that real whodunit pull’ The Times

From the Back Cover

'The Coffin Tree' grew in London's Second City, surviving the elements against all the odds. Near it, a shrouded body had been burnt on what looks like a funeral pyre. Had the victim climbed on to the fire to die? Or was it murder? The frazzled corpse turns out to be only one in a whole sweep of killings... starting with the deaths of two of John Coffin's own detectives.

In his efforts to solve the grotesque crimes casting a shadow over the Second City, Coffin is forced to question his own judgment, and to confront the untapped mysteries of another human heart...

‘Butler has the light touch of a master and a beguiling soul in the somberly monikered Coffin’
BOOKLIST

‘Gwendoline Butler writes detective novels that both in method and atmosphere are things apart... she achieves that real whodunit pull’
MARCEL BERLINS, 'The Times'

Edition details

• Publisher: Thorndike Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786204567
• ISBN 13: 9780786204564
• Binding: Paperback