- Paperback
- Publisher: Orion; New edition edition (6 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752837184
- ISBN-13: 978-0752837185
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.9 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 334,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Barry Maitland's cast of hard-working, bad-tempered cops, and in particular Brock, the wise older man, and Kolla, the smart young woman, are always a reliable team; Silvermeadow puts them on display at their best. Brock has unfinished business with North, a ruthless bank robber, whom someone spots in Silvermeadow, a vast shopping mall; Brock and Kolla move in on a murder hunt partly to have a pretext to hang around and wait for North to make his move. Someone killed a shop assistant and stuffed her body into a garbage compactor--and perhaps she was not the first, but rather just the first of the rootless young women who have disappeared to be found after her death ... Maitland has always been good at locations that are both crime scenes and countries of the mind and here we get not just the shining public face of Silvermeadow, but its access tunnels and guilty secrets. We also get a sense of what it is to run a place like that; the beleaguered director of the mall, her security chief, the brilliant cripple in the computer surveillance room--these are solid characters about whom we come to care as much as we do for the detectives we already know. --Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Following up a sighting of bank robber Gregory "Upper" North at Silvermeadow shopping mall, Brock and Kolla discover that another investigation, into the disappearance of a waitress, is already under way. Later, the body of the missing girl is found, crushed in the mall's rubbish compactor.
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First Sentence
I thought I might bring the children up to town sometime before Christmas. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I thought I might bring the children up to town sometime before Christmas. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a thoroughly enjoyable crime novel set in a mega-centre of shopping (makes you think immediately of Lakeside and Bluewater) where it all turns sour. Barry Maitland takes you behind the scenes of the apparently perfect and controlled surface, where nasty secrets are lurking... I thought I'd figured out whodunnit half way through but I was wrong - the author led me all the way up the garden path and round in circles before he was ready to let me in on the truth. Very well done.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
No-one who has ever spent a day at Lakeside Thurrock will ever feel the same about shopping in a vast mall or about being observed by security cameras. This book is beautifully written and tightly plotted. The characters come across as real people, maturing satisfactorily with each successive book in the series. I just wish Mr Maitland would write a bit faster as I now want to read the next one.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A Shopping Center is a Main Character
13 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
DCI Brock's old nemesis, Charles North, was introduced in The Marx Sisters, the first and perhaps the best of the Maitland police procedural series. A young girl goes missing and is discovered packaged in the huge trash compactors of the modern, enormous Silvermeadow shopping center. There are unsupported rumors of girls gone missing associated with Silvermeadow. Scotland Yard's Brock becomes involved because North, a vicious murderer and thief who has eluded Brock in the past, was sighted on the center's surveillance cameras. Together with Kathy Kolla, a detective sergeant and other repeating characters from his series' team, Brock is drawn into the strangely insular community of the center.
Like all of Maitland's mysteries, Silvermeadow is a heavily plotted modern police procedural. I am biased in that I prefer a good dose of psychological insight in my murders. The search for the girl's murderer consumes the first half of the book and several plausible suspects appear: her far too cheerful uncle who is a shopkeeper, a slightly addled anthropologist who objected to the center being built at all, the wheelchair bound man who runs the security cameras, the head of the Center's security team and even a local cop assigned to liaison with Brock. As in most of the books, Kathy Kolla is the adventurous, daring and somewhat impetuous lead character, doing most of the detecting and putting herself in danger. Kathy is the only character whose inner life is explored at all.
The main character is the shopping center. Maitland finds it to be nearly sinister, with its intentional blend of fantasy and consumerism. Maitland was originally an architect (a fact which is central to The Verge Practice in this series). Clearly the man is no fan of a building created to influence behavior as a shopping center is designed to be. It is an interesting thought and persistent theme but is more a digression which slows the story. (The same idea is pursued again in The Verge Practice.) The author manages his complex plots very well, and writes in clear prose making the book very readable. I found his treatment of the characters superficial. He starts with interesting character flaws but leaves them unexplored once their usefulness as red herrings end. As a villain, North seems a bit more dim than a very successful criminal ought to be. Brock himself never rises to same level as, say, the heroes authored by Ian Rankin, John Harvey or Peter Robinson's procedurals.
My own prejudices aside, fans of procedurals will like this book. While it sounds sexist, I think male readers will prefer this book and especially the final chapter's citation on consumerism.
Like all of Maitland's mysteries, Silvermeadow is a heavily plotted modern police procedural. I am biased in that I prefer a good dose of psychological insight in my murders. The search for the girl's murderer consumes the first half of the book and several plausible suspects appear: her far too cheerful uncle who is a shopkeeper, a slightly addled anthropologist who objected to the center being built at all, the wheelchair bound man who runs the security cameras, the head of the Center's security team and even a local cop assigned to liaison with Brock. As in most of the books, Kathy Kolla is the adventurous, daring and somewhat impetuous lead character, doing most of the detecting and putting herself in danger. Kathy is the only character whose inner life is explored at all.
The main character is the shopping center. Maitland finds it to be nearly sinister, with its intentional blend of fantasy and consumerism. Maitland was originally an architect (a fact which is central to The Verge Practice in this series). Clearly the man is no fan of a building created to influence behavior as a shopping center is designed to be. It is an interesting thought and persistent theme but is more a digression which slows the story. (The same idea is pursued again in The Verge Practice.) The author manages his complex plots very well, and writes in clear prose making the book very readable. I found his treatment of the characters superficial. He starts with interesting character flaws but leaves them unexplored once their usefulness as red herrings end. As a villain, North seems a bit more dim than a very successful criminal ought to be. Brock himself never rises to same level as, say, the heroes authored by Ian Rankin, John Harvey or Peter Robinson's procedurals.
My own prejudices aside, fans of procedurals will like this book. While it sounds sexist, I think male readers will prefer this book and especially the final chapter's citation on consumerism.
stand out in an already good series
24 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Much of the book takes places in a giant shopping mall and bizarrely enough, this creates a great atmosphere. There is almost a British cozy feel (though grittier) to the book, with the mall standing in for the village. Kathy and Brock are great as usual and this one is a bit stronger than some of the others. The characters are believable, I was thrown off the scent several times and I felt more immersed than usual. The whole series is good, some stand above the others--like this one.
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