A Cold Coffin (Collins crime) [Hardcover]

‘Gwendoline Butler is excellent on the bizarre fantasies of other people’s lives and on modern paranoia overlaying old secrets; and her plots have the rare ability to shock’
Andrew Taylor, Independent

‘Gwendoline Butler writes detective novels that both in method and atmosphere are things apart… she achieves that real whodunit pull’
The Times

‘Butler distils her own brand of disquiet: omnipresent and irresistible’
Sunday Times

‘[Gwendoline Butler’s] inventiveness never seems to flag; and the singular atmosphere of her books, compounded of jauntiness and menace, remains undiminished’ Patricia Craig, TLS

London’s Second City has been the scene of many a terrifying crime, but the discovery of a pile of infant skulls unearthed near police headquarters is particularly horrifying. Another major worry for John Coffin, Chief Commander, is a triple murder on his patch, that of a midwife and her two daughters. The obvious suspect is her son, Black Jack Jackson, a local villain, but both Coffin and DI Phoebe Astley are reluctant to accept his guilt.
Two further murders add renewed urgency to both investigations: one of a doctor, discovered in a hospital laboratory surrounded by grisly trophies, might well be connected to the disinterring of the children’s skulls; the other, of a notorious Second City criminal, with the brutal midwife killings. Coffin is able to take all this in his stride, however, until the growing violence comes closer to home – directly threatening the safety of his wife, the actress Stella Pinero.

London's second city has been the scene of many a terrifying crime, but the discovery of a pile of infant skulls unearthed near police headquarters is particularly horrifying. Although most of them are prehistoric, there is one that is certainly a lot more recent. But for John Coffin, Chief Commander, there is another, more pressing, matter: the inexplicable triple murder of a midwife and her two daughters. The obvious suspect is her son, Black Jack Johnson, a local villain, but both Coffin and DI Phoebe Astley are reluctant to accept his guilt.

A further murder seems, in a macabre fashion, to connect to the two investigations. But when other apparently random acts of violence occur, including a bizzarre attack on a school bus and the death of a chief suspect, the picture gets increasingly confused. Is the mother-and-baby Walker club involved in some way? What of the provenance of the newer skull? Foe Coffin time is running out:the body count is rising and he needs to find a solution fast.

'A Cold Coffin' is a truly frightening read, with a shocking denouement, and is an excellent addition to Gwendoline Butler's critically acclaimed series.

'Gwendoline Butler is excellent on the bizarre fantasies of other people's lives and on modern paranoia overlaying old secrets; and her plots have the rare ability to shock.
ANDREW TAYLOR, 'Independent'

'Butler distils her own brand of disquiet, omnipresent and irresistible'
JOHN COLEMAN, 'Sunday Times'

Gwendoline Butler is a Londoner, born in a part of South London for which she still has a great affection. She was educated at Haberdashers and then read history at Oxford. She now spends her time travelling, looking at pictures, and – of course – writing.