Death by Election
That quintessentially British institution, the brief, hotly contested by-election, forms the background for Hall's drama, in which an explosive combination of electoral and sexual politics engenders blackmail, suicide, and murder. Two complex protagonists are at the center of the tale: enigmatic Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray, newly arrived in Bradfield in the north of England, and city native Laura Ackroyd, a reporter for a Tory paper who is sympathetic to Labour because its parliamentary candidate was her college sociology tutor--and because her beloved grandmother has long been a party activist. While the local university's Gay and Lesbian Front debates "outing" closeted establishment types, Thackeray investigates the murder on a nearby moor of a former sociology student and the suicide of an eminently respectable Tory leader, and Ackroyd struggles to balance her personal and professional responsibilities. Hall, an investigative reporter and author ofThe Poisoned Pool(1993), has planted the seeds of a complex, involving series in this thoughtful procedural.Mary Carroll--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.