Search - A Place of Execution

This book could have been considerably shorter and edited a bit more and would have been a very suspenseful and fast paced story. Instead it’s a very slow paced and clunky mystery, mainly to the ‘true accounting’ conceit at the start of the book.

13 year old Alison Carter has gone missing from the small English village of Scardale in 1963. Several other children from surrounding villages have also disappeared, and not been found, adding to the mystery.

Her story is told in three parts
1.) A young and newly promoted Detective Inspector is consumed by the case, and working with his partner solves the mystery of her disappearance.

2.) A trial ensues, in which the entire case is rehashed, with almost every step of the investigation retold.

3.) Thirty five years later an investigative journalist decides to write the story of Alison Carter with the cooperation of the Detective Inspector who worked the case. Just as the book is to be published the Detective refuses to allow the publication of the book, as new information has been discovered; information he refuses to speak about.

The book could have done without the entire second part, and this would have sped up the pace of the story. The book seemed at times over descriptive. A series of coincidences that are hard to believe also bring the story down a notch.

There are several things I did like in this book. There is a very gothic and claustrophobic feeling about the village of Scardale. I also liked the characters of the two detectives, George Bennett and Tommy Clough and the procedural aspects of the police work, and these things did make the book a worth while read. However I did figure out the ‘mystery’ almost from the start, and was not as surprised at the ‘twist’ ending as I suppose the author thought I should be. I will probably give McDermid another go, hopefully with better results.

Thirty-five years ago, a young girl vanishes from her small village in England. The police try desperately to solve the case with no luck. The case sticks with one particular detective who uncovers shocking information about the crime. He tells the story to a journalist, but as the book is be released, the detective changes his mind and keeps the secret. The book's author must then go out on her own to solve the decades-old mystery. A good mystery that keeps you interested. If you are a fan of "cold case" mysteries, this one is a winner.

Rating Clarification: 4.5 Stars

A truely outstanding murder mystery, and one I would recommend to any fan of the genre. More then just a straightforward whodunnit, McDermid intricately explored the bonds that held an insular agricultural community together in early 1960's northern England. She fully captured the sense of time (almost too much so with her never-ending references to tea and cigarette usage), and the sense of desperation, anguish and helplessness that would come to any parent of a missing child. The almost minute-by-minute detail of the early stages in the investigation fully wraps the reader into the story and the leading characters. I don't often state a book is hard to put down. This is one such; a novel you can fully invest yourself in as a reader, and it is with a sense of loss that you turn the final pages.


My first introduction to McDermid, and I look forward to exploring more of her books in future.

In December 1963, thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from an isolated village in the English countryside. Her disappearance is investigated by newly promoted inspector George Bennett. The people of the village don't like outsiders, so George must earn their trust in order to solve the case. As days pass and clues are uncovered, George believes he will not be finding Alison alive.

This story is told in basically three parts. First we have the disappearance and the procedural investigation. Next we have an arrest and trial. The last section of the book happens 35 years later, when George tells his story to a journalist who is writing a story about the murder of Alison Carter. Suddenly George asks that the book not be published because he has discovered new information that he will not divulge. The journalist sets out to discover what really happened in the small village in 1963.

Even though I thought the book was a little too wordy and could have been edited better, I was hooked from the start, wanting to know what happened to Alison. Most authors would have ended the mystery after the arrest and trial, but McDermid continues the story 35 years later where some surprising revelations are uncovered. If you like police procedurals or mysteries with a twist, you'll like this book. My rating: 4 Stars. (It would have been 4.5 if the book was streamlined and cut about 75 pages out of it.)

well-written, complex, eerie mystery from one of the masters of the genre. A young girl
disappears from an isolated village--based on a true story