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The Arsenic Labyrinth
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Product Description
When he tips off the newspaperman that Emma will not be coming home, DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, re-opens the old investigation. Her enquiries take her to the Museum of Myth and Legend and to the remote and eerie Arsenic Labyrinth--a series of stone tunnels used to remove arsenic from tin ore.
Meanwhile, historian Daniel Kind is immersing himself in the work of John Ruskin, whose neighbors created the Arsenic Labyrinth. A shocking discovery makes it clear to Hannah that there is not one mystery to solve, but two, and she turns to Daniel for help in untangling the secrets of the past. As Hannah and Daniel struggle to resist a growing but dangerous attraction, Guy's plan to make a quick buck runs into trouble, and he has to resort to desperate measures. Someone is determined to kill to keep their secrets safe.
Set against the stunning backdrop of the Lake District in winter, the novel depicts how passionate relationships can lead to obsession and murder.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #976696 in Books
- Published on: 2007-01-15
- Original language: English
- Binding: Hardcover
- 294 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Edwards's crisply written third contemporary mystery set in England's Lake District (after 2005's The Cipher Garden) turns on the unsolved disappearance of Emma Bestwick, a woman who went missing a decade earlier. Guy Koenig, a con man recently released from prison, makes an anonymous phone call about Emma's fate to a local journalist who has just revisited her story. DCI Hannah Scarlett, who headed the original inquiry, now focuses her cold case squad on the matter. The predictable police procedure—reinterviewing relatives and friends of the missing woman—gets underway, making little progress until the police receive a tip as to the location of Emma's body. Edwards injects cryptic excerpts of another murder mystery into the narrative and rounds out the story with hints of a frustrated attraction between Hannah and historian Daniel Kind, whose father, Ben, was her mentor. Though the suspense and resolution of the secondary mystery distract from Emma's story, this is solid fare for fans of modern British police procedurals. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
DCI Hannah Scarlett returns to crack open another cold case. Ten years after the disappearance of a local woman, Emma Bestwick, a stranger comes to the Lake District and offers up tantalizing clues that could lead to a solution to the mystery. Meanwhile, historian Daniel Kind is researching the life of John Ruskin, the nineteenth-century poet, art critic, and philosopher. As usual, Scarlett's mystery and Kind's research intersect, this time at the Arsenic Labyrinth, a group of mining tunnels built by friends of Ruskin that could hold the answer to Emma's disappearance. And let's not forget the mysterious stranger: villain or concerned citizen? The Scarlett-Kind novels rely heavily on their beautiful Lake District setting, but Edwards never lets the atmosphere outshine the stories. Fans of this increasingly popular series will be in line for this one, and it should be recommended to readers of such similar British authors as Peter Robinson and Sally Spencer. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
" Edwards never lets the atmosphere outshine the stories. Fans of this increasingly popular series will be in line for this one, and it should be recommended to readers of such similar British authors as Peter Robinson and Sally Spencer." -- Booklist
"Ambitious, nuanced and brimful of Lake Country atmosphere -- Edwards always gives top value..." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Martin Edward's third mystery set in the Lake District of England, The Arsenic Labyrinth, is at its best in the beautiful descriptions of the region and for creating a moody atmosphere for the characters." -- Mystery Book Review
