Almost the Truth A country village. A family home. A quiet evening…
When two armed intruders break into the Jarvises' country house, the lives of Derek, his wife Janet and daughter Hannah are to be changed forever. Fearing for their safety, Derek offers no resistance, but one of the men is not content with robbery and a brutal rape takes place.
Though subsequently the men are caught, a bond of trust has been broken and Derek's family falls apart. Desperate to make amends, and hungry for revenge, he conceives a plan to punish the rapist in a way the criminal justice system has failed to do… 'Superior and scary… with an ingenious sting in the tale' Daily Telegraph
‘Yorke, a steely mistress of the mater-of-fact presentation of household horrors, has never written a more artfully assembled chiller’ John Coleman, Sunday Times
First British Edition Hutchinson (1993)
Dangerous to Know For years Hermione had been oppressed by her husband, Walter.
Before they married, he had seemed loving and protective. Now he was demanding and brutal.
And Hermione had allowed herself to become his domestic slave.
If she went shopping, she was obliged to account for every penny of her meagre allowance. If there was a smear of grease or a speck of dust anywhere in the house, Waiter would become incandescent with rage.
Shy and vulnerable, Hermione blamed herself.
But Waiter is a man whose emotions are running out of control.
And, as Hermione tentatively tries to acquire a measure of independence, her husband's desire to dominate women is becoming pathologically dangerous. ‘Margaret Yorke is my favourite mystery writer.’ Anita Brookner
‘Her admirers prefer Margaret Yorke to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell… lf you are not yet a fan of Margaret Yorke you are in for a treat.’ Evening Standard
‘Margaret Yorke is the mistress of unease.’ Daily Telegraph
‘One of the most undervalued of English crime writers’ - Time Out
Hutchinson (1991)
A Small Deceit William Adams was a killer.
But he had not been convicted for murder. He had never confessed, even when convicted of rape and criminal assault. Nor had he admitted to other attacks upon women. He felt no remorse, no pity for his victims. He despised them.
Now he was free, his sentence served in full, subject to no supervisory control. He had some money in a building society. He could assume a new identity and disappear.
At a quiet guest-house on the outskirts of a country town, Adams recognises someone from his past, someone also staying there under an assumed name, someone who must have recognised him.
From this chance encounter, a nightmarish chain of events is set in motion and the lives of a number of people who should have been immune from threat and blackmail, fear and violence are profoundly changed.
Margaret Yorke's gifts as a writer have received sustained praise since her first book was published in 1957. A Small Deceit demonstrates again how she has extended the range of the crime novel. Critical Praise For Margaret Yorke
'Margaret Yorke remains the best of the particularly English school of surprising, shocking revelations sprung on unsurprising, unshocking lives' Oxford Times
'A mastery of obsession and claustrophobia' Sunday Telegraph
'Quiet control, respect for character, firm belief that thrillers should also be novels’ Observer
Speak for the Dead Carrie Foster was still young when she started breaking the law. And she took to it like a duck to water. Gordon Matthews had transgressed only once, but the crime was far more serious. It was pity Carrie didn't suspect anything when he proposed to her, but then, why should she? Gordon looked presentable now - and prison had given time to invent a new past.
Nicholas was different - a shy young man, eager please - and for Carrie their affair began as an amusing diversion. A bit of harmless fun, and Nicholas need never know about her other life with Gordon. But there was something Carrie didn't know either …
'Yorke leads us gently and persuasively to a powerful climax' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Yorke has an extraordinary feel for the passions that lurk beneath unremarkable facades' Sunday Times
'Nobody does it better when it comes to putting sad, ordinary lives under the microscope' Daily Telegraph
Paperback - Warner (1999)
Intimate Kill After serving ten years of a life sentence for murder, Stephen Dawes was released on licence to start a new life. But Stephen could not let the past bury itself - he alone knew he had not killed his wife Marcia.
As Stephen set out to reconstruct Marcia's last hours - the time she must have spent plotting a suicide meant to look like a murder he gradually began to realise that nothing was as it had seemed, and that he was chasing a murderer himself… and putting his own life in jeopardy. ‘Ingenious’ Homes and Gardens
Almost the Truth
Almost the Truth