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Death duties
A chilling psychological mystery novel from an exciting new talent
Denbury, Essex, 1965, and two young policemen and a WPC listen intently as a seven-year-old girl calmly tells them why she’s just killed her father.
Placed in the protective care of her aunt, the young girl grows into a murderously effective euthanasia machine, ending suffering for those she’s convinced would be better off in another world.
Thirty years later, an old woman is discovered murdered in her flat, hideously daubed with cheap make-up. Police are baffled, searching for a motive to give any kind of clue as to the killer. The appearance of a second body, days later, sends the press into a frenzy, demanding answers to the gruesome mystery of the Christmas Killer.
It takes the combined talents of all three original officers to delve deeply into their own pasts and insecurities to solve the killings – a journey fraught with uncomfortable emotional discoveries and hidden secrets. It is only by unravelling the half-truths and deceptions of the past that a deranged killer’s twisted intentions can be halted in the future.
Phil Lovesey’s chilling novel combines all the excitement of a murder mystery with a depth of psychological insight into the areas of child manipulation and psychopathy that will fascinate and haunt the reader. Death Duties marks the debut of a remarkable new talent.
Denbury, Essex, 1965, and two young policemen and a WPC listen intently as a seven-year-old girl calmly tells them why she’s just killed her father.
Placed in the protective care of her aunt, the young girl grows into a murderously effective euthanasia machine, ending suffering for those she’s convinced would be better off in another world.
Thirty years later, an old woman is discovered murdered in her flat, hideously daubed with cheap make-up. Police are baffled, searching for a motive to give any kind of clue as to the killer. The appearance of a second body, days later, sends the press into a frenzy, demanding answers to the gruesome mystery of the Christmas Killer.
It takes the combined talents of all three original officers to delve deeply into their own pasts and insecurities to solve the killings – a journey fraught with uncomfortable emotional discoveries and hidden secrets. It is only by unravelling the half-truths and deceptions of the past that a deranged killer’s twisted intentions can be halted in the future.
Phil Lovesey’s chilling novel combines all the excitement of a murder mystery with a depth of psychological insight into the areas of child manipulation and psychopathy that will fascinate and haunt the reader. Death Duties marks the debut of a remarkable new talent.
- GenresMystery
427 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
25 people want to read
About the author
Phil Lovesey
22 books19 followersAward Winning short-story writer, author of four crime novels for HarperCollins - chronicler of the saztaculous and sometimes peffa-twizzly adventures of Matlock the Hare...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 8, 2016
Enjoyable crime story, easy to read. However I kept getting distracted by the total lack of police protocol... Detectives talking about confidential interviews in front of key witnesses.... The appearance of special forces reporting to the local police (seriously?) Would have been a better book if it had been a bit more believable. But still, if you ignore these points and like police/crime books it's an enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review