Page Updated: 16/04/99
Lesley Grant-Adamson
Lesley Grant-Adamson
Lipstick and LiesLipstick and Lies Newpbk 18 Feb 99
The Girl in the CaseThe Girl in the Case
Evil ActsEvil Acts
About the Author (Photo by Andrew Grant-Adamson)
Bibliography


New Paperback - NEL (1999)
First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1998)
Lipstick and Lies
See Review by Martin Edwards
See Review by Andrew Taylor
'Each year I keep three anniversaries: the date of the murder, the date of the hanging and Sandy's birthday. Without these cruel anniversaries it might have been possible to bury the truth.'
Anna tells the story of her fifties childhood, a time of hypocrisy and danger that has scarred the rest of her life. For she was the daughter of the notorious Rita Morden, whose lover was hanged for murdering her.
But was he guilty? Lawyer Gillian Spry, who is dedicated to investigating miscarriages of justice, has doubts. She plans to trace the two little girls who might have witnessed the killing Anna and her friend Sandy.
Lesley Grant-Adamson is acclaimed throughout the world for the chilling acuteness of her novels of psychological suspense. This superb study of a murder and the shadows it casts decades later shows her talent at its mesmerising best.
'Extreme emotions, unthinkable memories, unusual violence… Arresting' Independent
'Proficient in structure and pacing… a literary study of guilt and memory' Sunday Times
'Grant-Adamson writes wonderfully about the fifties and the damaging, lingering effects of murder. She is a joy to read' Tony Burroughs, Press Association
'A murder mystery it's almost impossible to put down… I enjoyed it thoroughly' Oxford Times
'A creepy story in the du Maurier tradition ... mind-blowing suspense. ' The Daily Telegraph (Wish You Were Here)
'She knows how to create an atmosphere of unease and incipient horror.' P.D.James (of Patterns in the Dust)
'One of the classiest thriller writers around.' The Sunday Times (of A Life of Adventure)
'Lesley Grant-Adamson's best book yet ... the writing is classy and the complicated structure skilfully controlled.' Sunday Telegraph (of The Dangerous Edge)
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First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1997)
The Girl in the Case
See Review by Andrew Taylor
The English village is a place where secrets are hard to keep but the truth is elusive.'
Lesley Grant-Adamson draws us into the world of a woman who fears everything but the danger that actually threatens her - and thereby leaves her fate in the hands of a murderer.
Maddy Knewton thinks there is nowhere she'd rather be than her Cotswold village in spring. But then a woman's body is discovered and her cherished dream begins to dissolve.
The stream of gossip that flows through the village touches the lives of Maddy, her friends and feckless lover, but never tells the whole truth. Was the woman's death a domestic murder? Is someone stalking Maddy? By the time she faces stark reality, it is too late.
This beautifully realised portrait of a village under pressure is a masterpiece of suspense by an author whose ability to tantalise is unequalled.
'The atmosphere of menace builds to a terrifyingly believable climax ... well-crafted, low-key and very scary.' Cosmopolitan
'Grant-Adamson turns one of those deceptively picturesque English villages into a snakepit of vicious ill-feeling ... an accomplished practitioner.' Gerald Kaufman, The Scotsman
'Grant-Adamson excels at creating a sinister atmosphere and she can take the simplest of plots and produce a dramatic climax.' Sunday Telegraph
'Lesley Grant-Adamson is rapidly turning the genre into an art form.' Cosmopolitan
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First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1996)
Evil Acts
See Review by Liz Lees
Evil makes us all feel a little colder. It forces us to accept how flimsy our lives and our sanity are. A crazed killer sends out shock waves. You don't have to be dead or at the graveside to suffer. A house with a history, a noise in the night and Grace's new life in London is wrecked. She has been fooled into buying the home of a serial killer. Tough and resilient, she spurns the friends who urge her to leave and turns instead to Mike Cleary, expert on Jack the Ripper and collector of notorious addresses.
But Cleary's theories and her increasing isolation feed her obsession with the monster who lived in her house, and obsession leads to delusion. She teeters towards mental breakdown, convinced of the killer's continuing presence and his efforts to destroy her as surely as he did his other victims.
Lesley Grant-Adamson has been widely praised for her chilling realism and her psychologically acute portraits of both criminals and their - often willing - victims. This mesmerising story is her most accomplished yet. The sense of realism in the book keeps the pages turning in a fury to find out if the worst will happen. A first class tale from an author accomplished at crime writing, and following titles such as Dangerous Games and Wish You Were Here.
'Evil Acts is imbued from the start with a powerful and compelling atmosphere. Read it ... but not perhaps when you're alone.' Glasgow Herald
'Convincing psychological insight and a high frisson count.' The Sunday Times
'This unusual thriller stands comparison with Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels.' Today (of A Life of Adventure)
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About The Author
Lesley Grant-Adamson started her journalistic career as a cub reporter in Gloucester she well remembers covering crime and the courts and when the police started to dig up Cromwell Street ... Fred West and his gruesome crimes have coloured some of her work to this day.
Lesley, born in London in 1942, spent much of her childhood in the Rhondda Valley of South Wales before returning to London. She worked on trade magazines and then provincial newspapers before joining the staff of the Guardian where she became a feature writer. She wrote on a full gamut of topics, but had a special interest in environmental issues.
On leaving the Guardian her intention was to write fiction, but for a time that was combined with freelance writing for newspapers, magazines and television. Since her first book, Patterns in the Dust, was accepted, she has been a full time novelist.
She is widely acknowledged to be a leading writer of crime and suspense fiction. Critics have compared her novels with the best of Simenon, Highsmith, Rendell and Elmore Leonard. Her novels have been translated into German, Japanese, Italian and Norwegian. She also writes short stories which have been published in magazines, anthologies and broadcast by the BBC. Her poetry has been published in Wales.
Lesley has spent a large part of 1992-3 living and writing in Andalusia. She was Writer in Residence at Nottingham Trent University and the East Midland Arts area in 1994 - in point of fact, becoming the first British crime writer to be appointed to a British university. She also teaches courses on writing suspense and crime fiction.

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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.

  • Lipstick and Lies (Hodder & Stoughton, 1998) New NEL Pbk Feb 99
  • The Girl in the Case (Hodder & Stoughton, 1997)
  • Evil Acts (Hodder & Stoughton, 1996)
  • Patterns in the Dust ( 1985)
  • A Life of Adventure
  • A Season in Spain
  • Curse the Darkness
  • Flynn
  • Teach Yourself Writing Crime and Suspense Fiction
  • Dangerous Games
  • Guilty Knowledge
  • The Dangerous Edge
  • The Face of Death
  • Threatening Eye
  • Wild Justice
  • Wish You Were Here

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