Winter 1963: two children have disappeared off the streets of
Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have
begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing:
thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from her town, an insular
community that distrusts the outside world. For the young George
Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most
difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation
with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the
anonymity of the inner city, and an outcome which reverberates through
the years. Decades later he finally tells his story to journalist
Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication,
Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information
which he refuses to divulge, new information that threatens the very
foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to re-investigate the
past, with results that turn the world upside down. A Greek tragedy in
modern England, A PLACE OF EXECUTION is a taut psychological thriller
that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and
illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectations on their
head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know.
