The Frozen Shroud (Lake District Series #6)

by Martin Edwards

Overview

On Halloween, just before the First World War, a young woman's corpse was found with a makeshift shroud frozen to her battered face. Her ghost - the Faceless Woman - is said to walk through Ravenbank each Halloween. Just five years ago, Katya Moss was killed, her face also covered to hide her injuries. The seemingly related cases fascinate Daniel Kind, a specialist in the history of murder. Then, while he is attending a Halloween party in Ravenbank, a third murder occurs. Once again, the corpse's face is shrouded from view. This can't be a coincidence.

It all presents DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the Cold Case Review Team, with the toughest challenge of her career. Hannah and Daniel team up professionally. But before they can solve this shocking puzzle, both of them must confront ghosts from their own past, as well as the ghosts of lonely, lovely, and mysterious Ravenbank.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781464201073
Publisher:	Poisoned Pen Press
Publication date:	04/02/2013
Series:	Lake District Series , #6
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

The first of Martins eight novels, All the Lonely People, was nominated for the CWAs John Creasey Memorial Dagger and introduced lawyer Harry Devlin. Martin has also written a stand-alone, Take My Breath Away, and completed The Lazarus Widow by the late Bill Knox. His short stories are collected in Where Do You Find Your Ideas? and he has edited 14 anthologies. His ten non-fiction books include Urge to Kill, a study of homicide investigation. He has contributed many essays to reference books such as The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing. The author lives in Great Britain.

Editorial Reviews

Edwards’s layered, atmospheric sixth Lake District mystery (after 2011’s The Hanging Wood) finds Det. Chief Insp. Hannah Scarlett, who heads the Cumbria cold-case unit, facing budget cuts that threaten to gut her division. To make things worse, her officious supervisor directs Scarlett to choose who goes and who stays. On top of that, Scarlett is adjusting to the breakup of a long-term relationship. Meanwhile, a five-year-old murder—a crime linked to another murder a century earlier—attracts Scarlett’s attention. In both murders, which occurred around Halloween, the female victim’s head was battered in, with a shroud draped over the shattered facial features. The cases were ostensibly solved, but the deaths of the main suspects before the investigations could truly be joined left some room for doubt. The creepy premise, coupled with a neat resolution, offers hope that this series will only get better. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Martin Edwards uses the lovely landscape of the Lake District to fine effect... clear prose and an engaging love for the territory."

The Chicago Tribune of The Cipher Garden Dick Adler

A trio of murders spanning nearly a century poses an unusual challenge for DCI Hannah Scarlett of the Cumbria Constabulary's Cold Case Review Team--especially since one of the corpses is anything but cold. Locals still tell the story of how Gertrude Smith, the Scottish lassie whom builder Clifford Hodgkinson hired and seduced and his jealous wife, Letitia, bashed to death on Halloween soon after World War I, roams the grounds of Ravenbank as the Faceless Woman. Lately, it seems that Gertrude's ghost has a lot to answer for. Five years ago, Australian massage therapist Shenagh Moss, the wild beauty who'd thrown over married event manager Oz Knight in favor of Ravenbank owner Francis Palladino, was found dead under very similar circumstances, presumably the victim of another ex-lover, Craig Meek, who'd recently been released from prison just in time to attack Shenagh and die in a lorry accident. Hannah's friend Daniel Kind, who's evidently the most famous academic historian in the Lake District, soon takes a professional interest in the legacy of the Faceless Woman. But it takes the shocking murder of her best friend, much-married Terri Poynton, to drag Hannah into the case. Once again, there's an obvious suspect--Terri's violent ex-boyfriend Stefan Deyna--but this time Hannah and Daniel both wonder if he's really guilty and wonder too if either of the earlier killers was ever correctly identified. The ensuing investigation is more routine than usual for the detecting pair (The Hanging Wood, 2011, etc.), but Edwards does an impressive job of linking the three murders across the long years.

Kirkus Reviews