Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Crime & mystery fiction

THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD

Stephen Kelly

A World War II Mystery

As the shadow of World War II descends over Europe, Detective Inspector Thomas Lamb hunts for an elusive killer behind the veil of a seemingly charming English village. THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD is in league with the wartime novels of Charles Todd and beautifully reminiscent of Anthony Horowitz's "Foyle’s War.”

German bombers are arriving daily, seeking to crush England. But in a rural Hampshire village, things have remained fairly quiet—until an elderly loner, Will Blackwell, is brutally murdered. The method of his killing bears the hallmarks of the traditional vanquishing of a witch, and indeed, local legend claims that as a boy, Blackwell encountered a ghostly black dog sent from the devil, who struck a bargain for Blackwell’s soul. Not long after the murder, a young woman who is carrying the illegitimate child of a fighter pilot also is violently killed; then a local drunkard ends up in the race of an abandoned mill with the back of his head bashed in. As the Germans continue their relentless attack, Detective Inspector Thomas Lamb rushes to solve the crimes. Do the killer’s motivations lie in the murky regions of the occult? Stephen Kelly is an award-winning writer, reporter, editor and newspaper columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post and Baltimore Magazine. He has a Master of Arts degree from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and has taught writing and journalism at Hopkins, Towson University, in Baltimore, and Sweet Briar College, in Virginia. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.

Available products
Book Published 2015-04-15 by Pegasus

Comments

Kelly transports his reader fully and with convincing authenticity to a different time and place. They just happen to be a time of war and a place of darkness and menace—and once he's got you there, he spins his web of intrigue with expert ease. Superb stuff!

This is a thrilling read. An evocative debut with a dark secret at its heart, Language of the Dead grips from the beginning and refuses to relinquish its hold until the final page. Based on a real case the novel takes the facts in a new and original direction, providing a thrilling dénouement via some very satisfying twists and turns. I for one can't wait to read more about the adventures of Inspector Lamb and his team in the future.

Stephen Kelly's The Language of the Dead is a gripping mystery set in the middle of the German air raids on Britain in World War Two. Grisly murder, war, the occult, and lively characters with dark secrets all come together in this fine story.

Chief Inspector Thomas Lamb investigates the brutal killing of an old man, the subject of a demoniacal local legend, while the Battle of Britain rages in the skies above the English countryside. Haunted by memories of the First World War reignited by the incessant air combat, Lamb follows a twisted trail of evidence including an emotionally disturbed boy's cryptic drawings. The investigation uncovers dark secrets that connect the victim's death to a series of murders. Filled with believable, psychologically complex characters in a vividly evoked historical setting, this superbly written, suspenseful mystery keeps the reader guessing from the very beginning to a startling conclusion.

A fine-grained first novel.