Call the Dying (Hardcover)

'This is top of the class. Taylor's re-creation of the 1950s is absolutely convincing.' - -- Sue Baker's Top 10 crime & thriller titles, Publishing News 'A journey into 1950s Britain, where post-war austerity is the order of the day and television is still a novelty. In CALL THE DYING by Andrew Taylor, a woman journalist, herself something of a novelty, returns to a small West Country town to take over the editorship of a failing weekly newspaper. When a man who tunes television sets disappears, she is forced into a working relationship with her former lover, a married police inspector. Full of nostalgic detail, this is old-fashioned crime at its best - perfect for a cold winter night in front of a roaring fire.' -- Joan Smith in Sunday Times roundup 'Andrew Taylor's latest addition to his "Lydmouth" murder series perfectly evokes that innocent world of the 1950s. The book is wonderfully redolent of that era, except that it has psychological depth instead of Christie-type cliches. Taylor builds a gripping story, as redolent of the period as brown linoleum. His subtle exploration of provincial society, with its gruesome underbelly, makes this a powerful extension to the series.' -- Independent 'What's rare and admirable in Taylor's fiction (especially in the Lydmouth series) is his painterly and poetic skill in transforming the humdrum into something emblematic and important. His writing is never pretentious. He strikes no attitudes. His crime scenes and procedures are meticulously observed and followed. CALL THE DYING is expert, ingenious and absorbing.' -- Philip Oakes, Literary Review 'Taylor's Lydmouth series is turning the classical detective story into a complex picture of our own past' -- Independent 'The most underrated crime writer in Britain today' -- Val McDermid 'Andrew Taylor is one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting novelist writing on crime in England today. Like Ruth Rendell he produces particularly good, emotionally complex psychological novels and rather better straight detective novels than she does in her Wexford series' -- Harriet Waugh, Spectator 'Taylor is an excellent writer' -- The Times 'Taylor is, as always, adept at showing the reality beneath the surface, as the characters interact and the unsavoury truth behind the murder is gradually revealed' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Taylor is the master of small lives writ large and, in the phrase coined in this era of surly pubs and poor food, he has carved a classic detective story which is deceptively calm and cool, but really smashing' -- Frances Fyfield, Express on The Suffocating Night 'CALL THE DYING is expert, ingenious and absorbing.' -- Literary Review 'Full of nostalgic detail, this is old-fashioned crime at its best - perfect for a cold winter night in front of a roaring fire.' -- Sunday Times 'Andrew Taylor's latest addition to his "Lydmouth" murder series perfectly evokes that innocent world of the 1950s. The book is wonderfully redolent of that era, except that it has psychological depth instead of Christie-type cliches. Taylor builds a gripping story, as redolent of the period as brown linoleum. His subtle exploration of provincial society, with its gruesome underbelly, makes this a powerful extension to the series.'

'The most underrated crime writer in Britain today'