The Grave Tattoo

Against the backdrop of England's Lake District, a drama of life and death plays out, its ultimate prize a bounty worth millions

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

Once all these narrative balls are tossed in the air, McDermid provides enough violence to add real urgency to her intriguing premise, which the late curator of the Wordsworth Trust declared improbable, but charmingly plausible. Even without the melodramatic plot twists, the novel s scholarship is exciting on its own terms, and entirely appropriate for a district so wildly beautiful that it attracts both poets and pirates.

VAL MCDERMID 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. Her novel, A Place of Execution, won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.