Why a Booktrail?
Destination : London’s Hampstead Departure Time: 2000s
There’s someone prowling in and around Hampstead Heath
Death in Profile
What you need to know before your trail
Hampstead Heath is normally a safe and respectable place to be, so when a series of murders threatens the safety and peace of the area, everyone is worried. Despite the local police investigation ongoing, there seems to be few clues or any real leads and those that do turn up seem to drip through their fingers. The police need a new initiative or a new direction of some sort but the trouble will be finding one before the next person is killed.
Travel Guide
Hampstead Heath
From the dark sense of foreboding on the cover, and the eerie glow of the old fashioned street lamp, you just know that walking past it onto Hampstead Heath is going to be the death of you.
A man goes to relieve himself in a door way in Wood Green and finds the first body of the novel but the fifth one it turns out in the the investigation. An apt introduction to a dark and dingy series of crimes.
Although set in contemporary London, this is an investigation which takes you back to the golden age days of policing. New methods help the case along slowly but it’s the good old fashioned detective’s nose and other old fashioned instincts which push things on even more.
This is like stepping through the old station in Hampstead, seeing the modern day uniforms but then stepping back in time and seeing the likes of Colombo and Sherlock Holmes at their desks as well.
Streetview Maps
Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill
Hampstead Heath - Mixed bathing ponds
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Hey a huge thanks to Urbane for this book as it was a cracking read over the Easter holidays! I’ve not really read something like this before – a mix of old and new and it was a really nice treat.
It was like stepping inside a crime convention with the golden oldies such as Sherlock and Agatha and then seeing the modern day police there as well before they all went in one big room to brainstorm the case. That’s how the novel made me feel and with the atmospheric cover and the old lamp on the cover, I was thrilled!
The murders are graphic and sad but it’s the focus of the police investigation and the banter between the characters which is the real gem of the piece.
When the profiler gets going there are some weird parts to deal with and the keystone cops seem to have left their handbook behind but then it’s not supposed to be a serious police procedural – it’s more than that.
It’s a classic who done it that works beyond the level of the science and the police work. Maybe it’s the likes of Sherlock and co who have come back reincarnated and are now working in Hampstead? After all it’s a fictional detective who plays quite a big role in the story.
If you can abandon disbelief then this is a good read to devour underneath the light of a lamppost.
Where Next?
