Gwen Moffat at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 17/04/2012

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Gwen Moffat - Page 1

Cue the Battered Wife (Kindle Edition)

01 Mar 12

17/04/2012

About the Author (Photo (c) Malcolm McWhorter)

Bibliography

First British Edition Eamont Press (2012)

Cue the Battered Wife (Kindle Edition)
A bird watcher’s photograph reveals a human hand in an eagle’s nest.
Vivien Reid, celebrated explorer and author, darling of the media, is devastated when her publisher drops her from the list. An admirer and one-time editor, Rupert Lasco, seizes his opportunity and pushes her towards writing crime novels, which she must set in the mountain country with which she is so familiar.
The proposal starts to bear fruit and Lasco moves into Vivien’s remote Highland lodge where propinquity results in progress from successful team work to affection and marriage, Lasco also winning over the fiercely loyal secretary and handyman who have found their own niches working with Vivien whom they adore. On the other hand the macho, hard-drinking neighbor, Alastair Semple, regards Lasco with overt hostility.
A mediocre climber, he has been taken out by Vivien occasionally and finds it humiliating that she should now reject him, citing the demands of the new book. Semple is contemptuous of both book and new husband and takes out his frustration on his wife, Aileen. His fortunes are low: once the local laird he is reduced to running a pony-trekking business, aided by his wife’s dour step-father while her mother attends to the domestic side of two households. Aileen is a loose cannon, neurotic and careless, existing on drink and drugs.
Semple’s frustration and rage escalate, culminating one afternoon in sadistic jibes aimed at Aileen before his violent exit at a time when bad weather is moving in. Next morning the glen awakes to deep snow over and the dawning awareness that the laird is missing.

First British Edition Constable (2007)

Gone Feral
The Boathouse, in scenic Cumbria, is inherited by Sophie Daynes, who cherishes it for its family associations. Her bore of a husband, in his forties and obsessed by his mistress, covets it for its cash value. Husband, wife and lover, all have their champions - while up in the woods a man lives in a caravan whom gossip maintains is a villain from Manchester forced to lie low. Gossip, greed and passion is exacerbated in high summer when the pleasure steamer churns up more than mud from the lake floor and a terrible package is revealed, changing the lives of all connected with the boathouse.
"'One of the crime shelf's defter hands.' Guardian 'Gwen Moffat creates vivid characters and not only manages a fast-moving, well-patterned plot, but also shows an aptitude for brilliant atmospheric set pieces.' Daily Mail"

First British Edition Robinson (2005)

Dying for Love
Culchet is everyone’s idea of the idyllic Lake District village, with geese on its tree-shaded green and friendly, well-behaved residents going quietly about their business: Bart Milburn is doing up the Old Hall, the gourmet chef at the pub is preparing for an anniversary party, her friend Alice in the back garden is reviewing a crime thriller, its violence the very antithesis of Culchet as it dozes through an early heatwave.
Then, without warning that peace is shattered. Two deaths occur within a short space of time, both too sudden and unusual to be deemed accidents. And when five-year-old Kim Butler disappears, everyone knows what that means - there has to be a kidnapper, or worse, living a seemingly respectable life in the village, pulling the wool over all their eyes. Panic erupts, vigilante groups are formed, and quietly, insidiously, blackmailers come out of the woodwork.
And all the time, unsuspected in this pretty, sleepy village where nothing ever happens, volcanic passions are waiting to erupt: driven by a lust for power, for possessions, and for merciless and fatal love.
Praise for Gwen Moffat
‘One of the crime shelf’s defter hands’ Matthew Coady, Guardian
‘Irresistible’ Financial Times
'Gwen Moffat creates vivid characters, and not only manages a fast-moving, well-patterned plot, but also shows an aptitude for brilliant atmospheric set pieces.' Daily Mail

First British Edition Constable (2003)

Man Trap
Beauty and savagery co-exist in paradise In a remote Highland glen Ruth Ogilvy, a single mother, is losing the battle to keep her daughter focused on schoolwork rather than the laird's student son. Meanwhile, the laird himself is set on outshining Balmoral when he opens the castle and grounds to the public. But the runup to the event is marred by a series of accidents, the young lovers disappear and the day itself ends on a spectacular note of horror, played out to the strains of Handel's Water Music.

First British Edition Constable (2002)

Retribution
In a remote Lakeland dale white-washed cottages nestle in lush gardens, sheep roam the fells and the Rutting Beck runs crystal clear: in short, a Cumbrian paradise. But Melinda Pink, visiting on holiday, knows better. She knows that yard-thick walls do more than shelter their occupants from the elements; they can also muffle screams. For there are serpents in paradise; dead sheep go unburied, tax dodges and benefit fraud are rife; the proprietor of the tearooms falls prey to a rumour of salmonella poisoning -and then the village busybody is found caught up in the jetsam of the flooded beck.
Aged now, arthritic but insatiably curious, it is Miss Pink who takes up the cudgels on behalf of the other intrepid local old folk - both alive and dead, and - as it soon transpires - of other, younger victims. Underage sex and extramarital affairs are not confined to the inner cities. Against a backdrop of a stark and beautiful countryside is woven a thread of love and lust, of betrayal and revenge, and if it is Miss Pink who detects a murderer in the midst of a small community, the problem is solved by the last victim, and justice neatly if horribly executed.

About The Author
Gwen Moffat left school at 17 to enlist in the Women’s Land Army. Transferring to the Army she deserted after four years and joined a group of travelling hippies. A variety of jobs followed from hotel maid to forester, farm worker to artist’s model. While managing a youth hostel in Snowdonia she qualified as a mountain guide and climbed professionally for the next 20 years. The bestseller Space Below My Feet covers those early years.
More non-fiction followed as she became involved with mountain rescue, conservation and a series of primitive cottages. Then, inspired by Livia Gollancz, she turned to crime, seeing a relation between human and elemental violence, between people pushed to the limit on mountains and those who go over the edge and kill.
Gwen Moffat revels in research: getting to know the bones of a new country, its weather, wildlife, inhabitants, making herself available for the germ of a plot to pounce and take root. She is obsessively curious and a good listener.
Commissioned by Gollancz and Viking to follow the California Trail she discovered a new world, and Hard Road West was followed by a string of mysteries as she worked and explored the deserts, mountains and glorious coasts of the American West.
Her settings may be wild and splendid or, as in isolated villages, deceptively tranquil, but the plots are dark. Her themes feature abuse: of women, children, animals, the environment. Characters echo their creator’s concerns: acting them out with cool amorality. Some form of justice may be achieved: retributive and often shrouded in a conspiracy of silence.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Cue the Battered Wife (Kindle Edition) (Eamont Press, 2012) Mar 12

Gone Feral (Constable, 2007)

Dying for Love (Robinson, 2005)

Man Trap (Constable, 2003)

Retribution (Constable, 2002) Chivers Press 2003

Quicksand (Constable, 2001)

Private Sins (Constable, 1999) (Melinda Pink)

Running Dogs (Severn House, 1999)

A Wreath of Dead Moths (Severn House, 1998)

The Lost Girls (Constable, 1998) (Melinda Pink)

Cue the Battered Wife (Macmillan, 1994) Kindle Edition March 2012

The Outside Edge (Macmillan, 1993)

Veronica's Sisters (Macmillan, 1992) (Melinda Pink)

Pit Bull (Macmillan, 1991)

Rage (Macmillan, 1990) St Martins Press 1990 (Melinda Pink)

The Raptor Zone (Macmillan, 1990) (Melinda Pink)

The Storm Seekers (Secker & Warburg, 1989)

The Stone Hawk (Macmillan, 1989) St Martins Press 1989 (Melinda Pink)

Snare (Macmillan, 1987) St Martins Press 1987 (Melinda Pink)

Grizzly Trail (Gollancz, 1984) BBC Audiobooks Black Dagger 2004 (Melinda Pink)

Last Chance Country (Gollancz, 1983) BBC Audiobooks Black Dagger 2004 (Melinda Pink)

The Buckskin Girl (Gollancz, 1982)

Die Like a Dog (Gollancz, 1982) Chivers Black Dagger 2003 (Melinda Pink)

Hard Road West (Gollancz, 1981) Viking 1981

Persons Unknown (Gollancz, 1978) BBC Audiobooks Jul 06 (Melinda Pink)

Over the Sea to Death (Gollancz, 1976) Scribners 1976 Chivers Black Dagger Jul 06 (Melinda Pink)

A Short Time to Live (Gollancz, 1976) (Melinda Pink)

Miss Pink at the Edge of the World (Gollancz, 1975) Scribners 1975, Chivers Black Dagger 1995 (Melinda Pink)

Hard Option (Gollancz, 1975)

The Corpse Road (Gollancz, 1974)

Lady with a Cool Eye (Gollancz, 1973) Black Dagger (BBC AudioBooks Black Dagger 2005) (Melinda Pink)

Deviant Death (Gollancz, 1973) Chivers Black Dagger 2000

Survival Count (Gollancz, 1972)

On My Home Ground (Hodder & Stoughton, 1968)

Two Star Red (Hodder & Stoughton, 1964)

Space Below my Feet (Hodder & Stoughton, 1961) Quality Book Club 1961, Houghton Mifflin 1961, Penguin 1976 Hodder & Stoughton 1961 Sigma Pbk Sep 01