Published by Sharpe Books,
7 January 2020.
7 January 2020.
ISBN:
978-1-09097454-9.
It is 1988
and John Lyon is driving to his new home in Colchester. He wants to forget the traumatic events that
have dogged him since his retirement from the police force. After two disturbing cases in France, the
most recent of which appears to have destroyed any possibility of a
relationship with Detective Constable Alison McConnell, he tries to convince
himself that it is time to move on. His
desire to make a new start, however, is quickly derailed when he receives a
phone call from a former student friend Stephen Vickers. Vickers is a professor
and Dean of History at the University of West Norfolk. His research has uncovered some papers from
1920 that perturb him. Vickers asks to
meet with Lyon at his home in Longstanton to discuss the implications of the
find. Lyon is intrigued and agrees to make the
sixty-odd mile journey to Stephen’s home. He has been an ex-Detective
Inspector for some time now, but policing is in bones and he cannot shake off
his instinct to solve a mystery.
A
few hours later he arrives at the Cambridgeshire town, where a sign welcoming
careful drivers is distinctly offset by the driving rain and dour architecture
that greets him.
“…I
noticed a tall, mean spire looming above the trees. Its tip seemed to pierce the baleful sky,
almost as a warning…”
A
warning that, of course, Lyon fails to heed as he finds himself becoming
enmeshed in a series of dreadful events that date back to 1920. Professor Vickers’ discovery exposes a
dreadful secret that has been hidden for sixty-eight years, a secret that still
has the power to ruin lives, a secret that some are still prepared to kill for.
Death
Knell is a terrifying tale of
depravity and deception. It probes those
dark and disturbing aspects of human psychology and behaviour that we hope to
avoid in real life but love reading about.
The story weaves together four different first-person narratives and
alternates between 1920 and 1988. From
the 1920s Stanley Bulling relates his tale of living in poverty and squalor, whilst
Sarah Parminter describes a life haunted by abuse and want. Their compelling narratives explore the
reality of life for poor families in the early part of the twentieth
century. They describe the paucity of
jobs, appalling living conditions, ineffective sanitation and almost
non-existent health care at the time. In
addition, the casual exploitation of women and children paints a very bleak
picture of life little more than a generation ago. The 1988 storylines are narrated by John Lyon
and Reverend Nicholas Beecham. Their world
is undoubtedly one that materially richer for most people, but in which
characters still deceive each other. As
past evils claw their way into the lives of later characters the plot races
towards a final, gruesome resolution.
Of
course, one suspects that this is not a resolution at all - it is simply a
pause before John Lyon is enticed by a futhur thrilling adventure. I hope so, because Death Knell is another
beautifully crafted, carefully researched and intricately plotted story by
Sally Spedding. A great read.
------
Reviewer:
Dot Marshall-Gent
Sally Spedding was born by the sea near Porthcawl in Wales and trained in sculpture in
Manchester and at St Martin's, London. My work was detailed, accurate and in
demand, but I began to realise words can deliver so much more than any
narrative sculpture or painting. Sally’s first crime mystery, Wringland, has a strong historical
thread and is set in the bleak fenland around Sutton Bridge. Cloven also invokes the past while in A Night With No Stars, published in
January 2005, it's a fourteen year old murder which destabilises the present. Prey Silence, set in SW France,
featuring an animal rights activist, was published in July 2006. Come and be Killed, set in the Malvern
Hills, came out in January 2007. Her strong familial connections with the
Pyrenees, Germany and Holland have provided her with themes of loss and
exclusion. The dark side of people, and landscape. The deceptive exterior, the
snake in the grass are all themes which recur in her writing.
Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years
first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control
officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English
in her mid-forties. She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive
Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and
writes mainly about educational issues. Dot sings jazz and country music
and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery
and crime fiction.
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