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The Lazarus Widow
(1999)(Book 25 in the Thane and Moss series)
A novel by Martin Edwards and Bill Knox
It is a daunting task finishing the final novel of the late crime novelist Bill Knox, but Martin Edwards has triumphantly completed the 25th Detective Sergeant Thane novel, The Lazarus Widow. Edwards is a considerable crime writer himself (The First Cut Is The Deepest), so the combination of the two writers is unbeatable.
A dead woman's body surfaces in the Clyde, off Glasgow's Docklands, which unfortunately, is not an unusual occurrence. But when a second body surfaces in the same place, the laconic Colin Thane of the Scottish Crime Squad finds himself personally involved: the second corpse is criminal Sam Baker, who had consented to aid Thane in destroying a major international fraud operation. As Thane and his colleague Sergeant Sandra Craig talk to Baker's widow Muriel--and learn about his wife-battering proclivities--the duo are snared by the The Lazarus Widow, an extortionist of terrifying ruthlessness. It seems the late Baker was acting as a middleman and got in the way. But how did he; and who is behind the Lazarus Widow? As the Thane-Craig duo head towards the remote Ayrshire coast for a final grisly encounter, crime readers are assured of a climax as powerful as anything in earlier Knox thrillers. The Lazarus Widow is the triumphant conclusion to a distinguished career, and Knox's crisp and brilliantly detailed narrative still shines through: "He had always beaten her when she had asked for an increase in the housekeeping. "Always punching to the stomach", she said simply. "That way, the bruises didn't show if anyone looked in. And he told me I'd be wasting my time going to the police--most of them still hid from domestic violence cases." --Barry Forshaw
Genre: Mystery
A dead woman's body surfaces in the Clyde, off Glasgow's Docklands, which unfortunately, is not an unusual occurrence. But when a second body surfaces in the same place, the laconic Colin Thane of the Scottish Crime Squad finds himself personally involved: the second corpse is criminal Sam Baker, who had consented to aid Thane in destroying a major international fraud operation. As Thane and his colleague Sergeant Sandra Craig talk to Baker's widow Muriel--and learn about his wife-battering proclivities--the duo are snared by the The Lazarus Widow, an extortionist of terrifying ruthlessness. It seems the late Baker was acting as a middleman and got in the way. But how did he; and who is behind the Lazarus Widow? As the Thane-Craig duo head towards the remote Ayrshire coast for a final grisly encounter, crime readers are assured of a climax as powerful as anything in earlier Knox thrillers. The Lazarus Widow is the triumphant conclusion to a distinguished career, and Knox's crisp and brilliantly detailed narrative still shines through: "He had always beaten her when she had asked for an increase in the housekeeping. "Always punching to the stomach", she said simply. "That way, the bruises didn't show if anyone looked in. And he told me I'd be wasting my time going to the police--most of them still hid from domestic violence cases." --Barry Forshaw
Genre: Mystery
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