About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

SILVERMEADOW
by Barry Maitland
Arcade Publishing, August 2002
352 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1559706147


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Two days after Kerri Vlasich, a 14 year old girl who works at Silvermeadow Mall and lives in the nearby Coucncil Estate (housing project on this side of the Atlantic) just east of London, vanishes, her mother reports the disappearance to the police. A vicious bank robber, who has been out of the country for several years, is seen at the same mall, so Scotland Yard decides to send Brock ostensibly to deal with the problem of the missing girl, but actually, to carry on a parallel search for the criminal, Gregory North.

Because of a problem at the solid waste recovery plant, which generates heat and electricity for that part of England, trash has been piling up. A body is found in a garbage bag and the superintendant of the plant calls the police who search for clues among the compacted trash. The bag is surrounded by the remains of cardboard boxes which appear to come from Silvermeadow.

Brock calls in his aides, including Kathy Kolla and Leon Desai, to run the investigation of the murder, while he has another team working on trying to locate North and find out why he returned to England, and what he was planning.

Maitland is an architect and he builds his books the way an architect designs a building. The venue is a character in the story. We learn how malls in general, and this imaginary mall in particular, are designed, and they cause one to spend more than one's budget allows. Brock's crew is supplemented with local police, the mall management, and the locals, all of whom are fully rounded characters. The interrelationships among the people and between the people and the mall itself, as well as the poverty of the lives of the residents of the estate not far from Silvermeadow are intriguing, as are the personal lives of Brock and Kolla.

This is a review of the UK edition

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2002

This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]