false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg 809500 14 Rennie Airth's first John Madden historical thriller, <I>River of Darkness</I>, found a place on more than a few "best of the year" lists in 1999--with good reason. Set in post-World War I England, it was serial-killer fiction of an unusually exalted order, with Madden, then a taciturn and wearily pragmatic veteran-turned-Scotland Yard inspector, investigating the eerie slaughter of a well-respected family in Surrey.<p> Fortunately, Airth's first sequel was worth the six-year wait. <I>The Blood-Dimmed Tide</I> (which takes its title from a W.B. Yeats poem) finds Madden now retired and living peacefully on a farm in Surrey with his doctor wife, the former Helen Blackwell, and their two children, 10-year-old Rob and 6-year-old Lucy. The year is 1932, and the precipitous rise of the Nazis in Germany leaves many of their fellow countrymen, as well as no few Brits, worried for the future peace and stability of the European continent. More immediately concerning for Madden, however, is his discovery of the corpse of pubescent Alice Bridger--raped, disfigured, and secreted near a tramps' backwoods campsite. Suspicion falls quickly on a vagrant known as Beezy, who was supposedly visiting the area, but Madden--with his remarkable insight into crime ("Madden's always had a way of seeing things clearly, of seeing through them, or rather beyond them," relates a former police colleague)--thinks this is more than an isolated homicide. Sure enough, a records check turns up similar slayings elsewhere in England, dating back to 1929, as well as an active investigation by German law enforcement into half a dozen dead girls in Bavaria and Prussia. What accounts for both the wide range of these mutilations, and the lengthy lag time between them? Could the police be looking for a psychopathic traveler, or worse, a rogue spy who's managed to maintain a respectable front at his international postings, while satisfying his malevolent appetites in his spare hours? And what is the "devil's mark" that this killer reportedly bears?<p> Airth is a fastidious plotter, expert in trickling out twists that heighten story tension but don't leave readers awash in red herrings. Although Madden's role here is somewhat less than it was in <I>River of Darkness</I>--a consequence of his strong-willed wife trying to protect him from further hurt, after the horrendous events of that previous tale--the author compensates by giving us a supporting cast of amply dimensioned Yard types, led by Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair, a perceptive Scot whose doggedness pairs well with Madden's gift for inspiration. While Airth fails, oddly, to exploit a couple of opportunities for interesting plot turns at book's end, his psychological portrait of the murderer imbues <I>Tide</I> with a fine pathos, and the backdrop of Nazi power-grabbing sets the stage for what is supposed to be a third and final Madden yarn. Let's hope that novel appears in more expeditious fashion. <I>--J. Kingston Pierce</I> 1875701 book 2004 The Blood-Dimmed Tide (Penguin Mysteries) total:110|5:19|4:62|3:24|2:5|1:0| 110 425 158 27 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Sat Sep 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 05:41:52 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 12:11:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Fri Aug 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 07:38:23 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 16:38:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 0 0 false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 22 20:56:54 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 22 21:19:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 04:05:55 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 11:59:41 -0800 2009 River of Darkness, Airth's first in this series. A change in the main character's life circumstances seemed to diminish the strength of his characterization, and he seemed less able to carry the story or a series. In fact, he does play a lesser r...more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Sun Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 12:47:39 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 12:53:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 5 0 false Sat Nov 28 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 28 08:54:29 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 28 08:57:34 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1349832 0333904095 9780333904091 4 2 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182918399m/1349832.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1349832.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Tue Sep 04 11:43:14 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 11:47:03 -0700 2007 Rennie Airth – 2nd in series
McMillan, 2004- Hardcover
John Maddan has retired from Scotland Yard to be with his wife and children on their farm. But when a young girl disappears and John, with a former colleague still on...more...]]> 4576348 2253116637 9782253116639 1 1 3.86 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4576348.La_Mar_e_sanglante_The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 2 0 false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 07 05:21:41 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 12:30:04 -0700 2008 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Mon Jul 06 11:30:35 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 11:31:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Sun Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 10:32:41 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 11:50:34 -0700 2009 How...more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Fri Aug 07 11:10:19 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 23:04:19 -0700 2009
It got off to a slow start for me mainly because I had to work to understand the Brit dialog of 70 years ago. Once past the dialog problem the only minor annoyance was the difficulty getting a sense of th...more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Thu Nov 19 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 19:13:26 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 19:16:02 -0800 2009 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Sat Nov 28 12:21:20 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 28 12:22:21 -0800 2009 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Sat Nov 28 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Sep 21 09:50:30 -0700 2009 Sat Nov 28 12:01:46 -0800 2009 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Sun Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 30 02:51:58 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 02:55:21 -0700 2009 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Thu Oct 29 22:21:41 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 22:23:55 -0700 2009 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 30 19:46:24 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 19:47:41 -0800 2008 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 3 0 false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 06:46:40 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 06:47:47 -0700 2009 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 4 0 false Wed Apr 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 09:23:43 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 09:34:40 -0700 2008 more...]]> 809500 0143037102 9780143037101 93 24 3.86 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178583432m/809500.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809500.The_Blood_Dimmed_Tide 0 0 false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2010 Sun Sep 13 00:33:19 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 14:25:58 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=809500