Gwen Moffat - Page 1
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First British Edition Robinson (2005) |
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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
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First British Edition Constable (2003) |
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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.
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First British Edition Constable (2002) |
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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.
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First British Edition Constable (2001) |
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Quicksand
An atmospheric tale from one of the crime shelf's defter hands
Life on the beautiful and remote Outer Hebrides is quiet and ruled by the elements. When a camera crew arrives to survey one of the islands for 'an experiment in desert island settlement', the locals are cautious and unwelcoming. Soon the presence of so many outsiders begins to eat away at the islanders' fragile community and when a young girl is murdered, the tension on the island reaches dangerous levels. As accusations fly, rumours of clandestine trysts, illegal slaughter and drugs all serve to cloud the picture surrounding
the girl's death. Suspicion soon turns to one of the TV crew, but is blaming an outsider just an easy way out for the islanders?
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First British Edition Constable (1999) |
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Private Sins
Rich autocratic Montana rancher, Charlie Gunn, delights in playing cruel practical jokes and watching the victims squirm. Charlie is murder meat. His wife is a doormat, his son gay, his nubile granddaughter disappeared for ten years without trace or explanation. A violent and ghastly death and a multi-million dollar will, bring Miss Pink - not climbing this time but riding wild horses - to ferret out the dark secrets of a dysfunctional family against a background of stupendous canyons, abandoned mines and ghost towns.
About The Author
Gwen Moffat’s day job was rock climbing and she broke moulds. As the first woman guide she carved a niche in the macho world of professional mountaineering; as a crime writer she specialises in wild country: from the Rockies and deserts of America to the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides.
She delights in research. For Grizzly Trail she worked cattle on a Montana ranch; for Last Chance Country (based on Death Valley) she rented a house in the Mojave Desert. Her main protagonist, Melinda Pink, follows her creator’s interests: surpassing her in some, falling short in others. Miss Pink is an intrepid rider but not much of a climber, she is a perceptive investigator and a large woman of imposing presence (Moffat is tiny, unobtrusive but as inquisitive as
a cat). Both are ageing now, politically incorrect, and greatly concerned with injustice and abuse: towards animals, the environment and people. Such concerns surface in the mysteries - from traffic in endangered species in Rage to incest in The Lost Girls, and the media invasion of a remote crofting community in Quicksand.
Agent: Juliet Burton (020 8762 0148/fax 8743 8765)
e-mail: juliet.burton@btinternet.com
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
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)
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
Dying for Love
by Gwen Moffat
