Marjorie Eccles

Page Updated: 16/06/2004

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Marjorie Eccles - Page 2

Echoes of Silence

The Superintendent's Daughter

Cast a Cold Eye

A Species of Revenge

Requiem for a Dove

First British Edition Constable (2000)

Echoes of Silence
Moving back to Yorkshire is the last thing DI Tom Richmond thought he would do. His superiors are also perturbed by his decision to transfer. Surely after the murder of that young girl Steynton is the last place he should want to settle. Is this Richmond’s attempt to make peace with the past or does he have ideas about reopening a bungled investigation?
Whatever Richmond’s intentions events soon overtake him and when a local biographer is found murdered the inquiry leads him straight to the Denshaw family. It’s ten years since eight-year-old Beth was killed, snatched from the garden of the Denshaw family home. She was found four months after her disappearance, hidden under the bandstand in the local park. Even though her mother confessed to the killing, there are still those who believe that Beth’s stepfather, vicar Peter Denshaw was responsible for her death. It seems like fate has brought Richmond back to the Denshaws, and he knows he won’t be able to leave the past alone. Peter’s mother, former model Freya Cass, fears Richmond’s questioning and the renewed speculation will ruin her already fragile son. Nearing death she decides to take matters into her own hands, with tragic consequences.
A compelling novel of a family shaped by years of deceit and betrayal.

First British Edition Constable (1999)

The Superintendent's Daughter
Julie Mayo and Kathryn Connolly had been the closest of fiends since their schooldays, and now one of them is found brutally murdered in a luxurious country house hotel, while the other has gone missing. Because Julie is his daughter, Superintendent Gil Mayo is excluded from taking charge of what is the most important investigation of his career. His assistant, Abigail Moon, carries on with the murder inquiry. This not only centres on the complications of Kat's colourful and complex love life, but also delves into the past drawing in people who would prefer to forget the past indiscretions which are inevitably coming to light.
'The book will appeal to readers who appreciate an intiguing mystery, interesting subplots and rich characterisation, with keen insights into secondary characters' Publishers Weekly

First British Edition Constable (1999)

Cast a Cold Eye
Renowned architect Clive Lethberidge was wealthy, powerful and successful, but when he's brutally bludgeoned to death, Detective Inspector Gil Mayo can't find anyone with a good word to say about the man. But did someone hate him enough to kill him in cold blood? As Mayo investigates the dark side of Lethbridge's life, he uncovers a series of startling facts that he must put together fast before the killer, once again, resorts to murder.

First British Edition HarperCollins (1996)

A Species of Revenge
A man lies face down in the mud and puddles of a Lavenstock allotment. He has no identification, only some car keys and Belgian francs in his pocket. Detective Inspector Abigail Moon, investigating the death, soon finds herself getting nowhere fast. The occupants of Ellington Close and other nearby houses, including the eccentric Kendrick twins and the recently widowed Dermott Voss and his children, can offer no help, being more preoccupied with their own problems.
When another murder traumatizes the community, Superintendent Gil Mayo finds himself personally involved, and he has to face some serious questions: Could any of these people, many of whom he has met, be capable of such a brutal crime? And can there really be two murderers loose in Lavenstock?
Another intricate and absorbing puzzle featuring Gil Mayo and Abigail Moon.
`Believable characters and a good sense of pace... the unravelling of the puzzle and the relationships between the detectives make this an entertaining read.’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
'Superior police procedural… well put together and written in an easy style with believable characters' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph (of Late of This Parish)
`Eccles’s latest outstanding police procedural is marked by her keen perceptions into human relationships.’ Publishers Weekly (of Late of This Parish)

Hardback
Doubleday (American) (1991)

Requiem for a Dove

‘No,’ he said at last, ‘it wasn’t what I anticipated. When I heard a woman had been fished out of the canal just here I automatically thought of Marion Dove, knowing she lived here. I expected to find she’d taken her own life.’
‘Suicide? Was she suffering from depression? Had she attempted it before?’
Ison said, ‘No, not clinical depression, that is. But she’d been having treatment for some time. She was suffering from non-operable cancer. She’d left it too late and I had to tell her a few weeks ago that her chances of surviving more than another month or so were so slim as to be non-existent.’
‘He kisses the joy as it flies.’ Those underscored lines of poetry suddenly seemed unbearably poignant. A sense of fleeting melancholy assailed Mayo as he looked at Ison, shortish, bespectacled, middle-aged, tired. Of such stuff are heroes made. ‘It’s a devil of a way to earn a living, Henry, yours.’
Ison grunted, briskly rolling down his sleeves. ‘Yes, well nobody ever made you become a policeman, either.’

When the body of Marion Dove is found floating in the canal near her home, Detective Chief Inspector Gil Mayo discovers she had been strangled. Her doctor tells him she had inoperable cancer and seemed resigned to it, and there seems very little motive for murder until Mayo finds that she had drawn a rather large sum of money out of her bank account, and her solicitor tells him that she wanted to change her will.
Her daughter Shirley is married to the Managing Director of Dove Glass, the family business; her other daughter seems quite happy as a university lecturer. Then Mayo discovers that Marion’s seventeen year-old nephew disappeared about the time she was killed. It takes all his ingenuity to ferret out a secret buried deep in the past that has stunning consequences for the whole family…
`Tidy plot, excellent scenes of West Midlands working life.’ Felicia Lamb, Mail on Sunday