Absolution - Hardcover

Ramsay, Caro

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1933648414 ISBN 13: 9781933648415

Publisher: Pegasus Books, 2007

Synopsis

It's twenty years since police detective Man McAlpine has set foot in Patrickhill Station - and more than twenty years since he fell forever in love with the mute, faceless woman he called Anna as she lay dying in Glasgow's Western Infirmary. Daily he'd watched over her, and they had begun to communicate with each other, she by moving her wounded fingers. Her fingers could not tell the sad, unseasoned police cadet her name, however, or name for him the father of her newborn baby girl or identity the assailants who had flung the acid in her once incomparably beautiful face. Or tell him how she'd smuggled a cache of uncut diamonds into Scotland.
Now McAlpine is back in Patrickhill, where he's been summoned to head up the investigation of a disturbing murder case. Two women - their arms outstretched, their legs together and feet crossed at the ankle - have already died at the hands of a man the press has tagged the Crucifixion killer. More gruesomely, the third victim is also violently disfigured when her body is discovered up in Whistler's Lane, coincidentally (perhaps) the scene of an equally brutal murder four years earlier.
The face of another woman, though - a strikingly beautiful young woman, blond - has taken hold of Detective McAlpine's consciousness, and soon the consequences of a case cold for two decades are commanding - and dangerously thwarting - the course of his team's current, already desperate investigation.
With crimes in the present continually detouring both McAlpine and the elusive killer he pursues into an unredeemed past, the mystery in this steely piercing psychological thriller is as gripping as its twists are surprising. And absolution proves to be extreme.

About this title

Review

When no less an authority on the crime genre than Val McDermid grants the royal seal of approval to a novel, attention must be paid. Caro Ramsay's Absolution is the latest recipient of the McDermid largesse, and this is undoubtedly one of the most impressive debut novels in the field in some time. Of course, the Glasgow setting is familiar territory for aficionados of the tough modern crime novel (and hard-edged Scottish crime writing has been pretty thoroughly colonised by such writers as Ian Rankin), but Ramsay shows that there is still new work to be done in this area.

The Crucifixion Killer is cutting a bloody swathe through luckless female victims, leaving them to bleed to death with their arms outstretched. The case is a hot potato for DCI Alan McAlpine and his associates -- and not just because of the imperative of catching a savage killer. In 1984, McAlpine was just a PC on the beat, assigned to guard a woman whose face been mutilated by an acid attack. Disaster followed this assignment, and McAlpine has been living with the consequences ever since. But as he gets closer to the truth about this more modern monster (aided by his colleagues DS Anderson and DS Costello), it's clear that he needs to settle accounts with ghosts from his own past.

As this synopsis might suggest, we are most definitely in disturbing territory here -- this is the kind of crime writing that takes no prisoners, and those who want comforting Home Counties mysteries should steer well clear. While Ramsay's uncompromising novel has hints round the edges that reminds us it's a debut novel, the final effect is genuinely accomplished, and it's clear that Caro Ramsay is a name we'll be hearing from again. --Barry Forshaw

Review

Ramsay handles her characters with aplomb, the dialogue crackles and the search for the killer has surprising twists and turns (Observer)

Many shivers in store for readers, followed by a shattering climax (The Times)

Brilliant in twisting the tension tauter with each page (Guardian)

Edition details

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1933648414
• ISBN 13: 9781933648415
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 401