A Place of Execution

One of the most acclaimed novels of suspense of our time, A Place of Execution won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was hailed by critics as “a marvel from start to finish” (The Wall Street Journal) and “a modern masterpiece” (The Denver Post).

Romantic Times - Toby Bromberg

Val McDermid has created a novel so intense and vivid that the reader suspends her own reality and enters the world of Scardale in 1963. The story is tightly told with characters so memorable that they become part of our life. A brilliantly logical denouement stuns and shatters us, making this a most remarkable reading experience.

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years and is now a full-time writer and lives in South Manchester. In 1995, she won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year.