Union Jack (A Lindsay Gordon Mystery) - Softcover

McDermid, Val

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0704345943 ISBN 13: 9780704345942

Publisher: Women's Press Ltd,The, 2001

Synopsis

Fourth in the series featuring investigative journalist Lindsay Gordon. When union leader Tom Jack falls to his death from her bedroom window after a spectacularly public row with Lindsay, it seems the only way to prove her innocence is to find the real culprit. Leaving her new home in California for a trade union conference in Sheffield, Lindsay Gordon finds herself in the company of old friends - and enemies, including Tom Jack. When this unethical union leader is found dead, having catapulted out of Lindsay's tenth-floor hotel room, she is taken in for questioning by the police. Hoping to clear her name by finding the real killer, Lindsay searches among hundreds of unruly union delegates for a murderer who may have struck once before. Along the way she uncovers a seething cauldron of blackmail, corruption and abuse of power, all brought to the boil by her investigation.

About this title

About the Author:

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She is now a full-time writer and divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Lindsay Gordon (Report for Murder, 1998, etc.), a Scottish teacher of journalism now based in California, has returned to Sheffield, England, to attend a journalists conference concerned mostly with the business of unions. There's much to remind Lindsay of a conference in Blackpool nine years beforesoon after the death from cancer of her lover Frances Collier. At that meeting Lindsay's friend and fellow editor Ian Ross had died in an auto accident soon after his breakup with longtime mistress Laura Craig, who's in attendance at Sheffield nowchic and sharp-tongued as ever. Lindsay's more at ease after the arrival of Dr. Sophie Harley, her latest lover, who's to give a lecture. The entire assemblage is intrigued by the appearance every night of a gossipy newsletter that, among other things, accuses Laura of being a spy for anti-union forces and accuses Tom (Union) Jack, General Secretary of the Amalgated Union of Media Workers, of skimming union funds. All this takes a backseat when Lindsay, returning to her room one night, discovers her window smashed and the body of Tom Jack on the ground ten floors below. With Lindsay a prime suspect but not yet charged, Lindsay and Sophie proceed to play detective, using endless questions, hypnosis, break-ins, the study of secret documents, etc. Their mostly dull, repetitive moves do finally pin down the killer and even uncover the author of the infamous newsletter. Long on talk, short on suspense: McDermids fuzzy plot and the uninspired characters fall far short of some of her previous efforts. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Women's Press Ltd,The
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0704345943
• ISBN 13: 9780704345942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264