Politician spills his guts - all over the road! The discovery of Bradley Pine's body off a busy road signals the end of his bid to win a local election. But why would the killer risk dumping the body so publicly? And why should he not only reduce the victim's mouth to pulp, but partly disembowel him? With the election looming, and Woodend's old enemy Marlowe replacing Pine as candidate, Woodend is required to produce a result. Any result!
A pseudonym used by Alan Rustage. Sally Spencer is a pen name, first adopted when the author (actually called Alan Rustage) was writing sagas and it was almost obligatory that a woman's name appeared on the cover (other authors like Emma Blair and Mary Jane Staples are also men).
Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher. In 1978-79 he was working in Iran and witnessed the fall of the Shah (see the Blog for what it was like to live through a revolution). He got used to having rifles - and, one occasion, a rocket launcher - pointed at him by both soldiers and revolutionaries, but he was never entirely comfortable with it.
He lived in Madrid for over twenty years, and still considers it the most interesting and exciting city he has ever visited, but for the last few years he has opted for a quieter life in the seaside town of Calpe, on the Costa Blanca.
His first series of books were historical sagas set in Cheshire (where he grew up) and London. They were very popular with his English readers, but his American readers find the dialect something of a strain.
He has written twenty books featuring DCI Woodend (a character based partly on a furniture dealer he used to play dominoes with) and ten (so far!) about Woodend's protegé Monika Paniatowski.
His DI Sam Blackstone books are set in Victorian/Edwardian London, New York and Russia, and the Inspector Paco Ruiz books have as their backdrop the Spanish Civil War.
Alan is a competitive games player who likes bridge and pub quizzes. It is only by enforcing iron discipline that he doesn't play video games all the time. He now lives on Spain's Costa Blanca.
This is an oddly complicated book (and not that long to sort the whole thing out either)--two detectives that had an affair with each other are asked to work together on a new case. SA local politician is found beaten and disemboweled on a roadside, and it seems to be connected to an event that happened two years before, where there was a freak snow storm, and some people did not make it out alive. Was there foul play (of course, you have to think) and what exactly is it all about.
** edit I stand corrected. Read in order for better enjoyment. Thanks Elizabeth. **
I didn't realise this was number 16 when I read it so I think you can read them individually without missing too much. Good plotline and moves at a steady pace.
If you like a good English mystery with intricate characters, this author is one of my favorites. U must read in order as the lives of the characters go on from book to book. Go on www.stopyourekillingme.com to find out the order to read them in. These mysteries are quite clever and not boring!