The Drowning Ground: A Novel

by James Marrison

Overview

Out here, in the quaint ceaseless calm of an English vil­lage, it is hard to imagine a life beyond. From the outside, everything seems to make sense. Everything has its place.

My friends are open and unsuspecting. There is none of the natural suspicion of the Argentinian. . . For me, it's unbeliev­able in a way.

For two decades after being forced to leave his native Argentina, Detective Chief Inspector Guillermo Downes has sought tranquility in the orderly life of the English Cotswolds. But violence can strike just as suddenly in the countryside as it can in Buenos Aires.

When the body of wealthy landowner Frank Hurst is found with a pitchfork through his neck, it brings back disturbing memories of former mysteries. Hurst's wife drowned in their swimming pool-an official accident, though many villagers have their doubts. And what about the two young girls who were abducted years before, with some possible links to Hurst that were never proven?

''It's something truly terrible to make someone disap­pear,'' Downes tells his partner. "Because the family never know, you see." Years ago he had promised the vanished girls' mothers to find their daughters, and as the ripples from Hurst's death spread through the village, there is fresh hope that he might finally make good on that promise, no matter what it costs the community or himself.

With the kind of insights into life in a seemingly peaceful village that made Broadchurch so powerful, James Marrison's The Drowning Ground introduces a terrific new voice in crime fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250054197
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/25/2015
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

JAMES MARRISON is a journalist with a Master's degree in history, specializing in American Secret Intelligence, from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Marrison was a regular contributor to Bizarre magazine in the UK, where he wrote about true crime, and he also wrote for an English language newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he now lives. The Drowning Ground is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

05/04/2015
Something wicked is afoot in Marrison's tense debut, set in the quiet, picturesque villages of the English Cotswolds. Chief Insp. Guillermo Downes gets on the case after the discovery on a remote hillside of the body of a man with a pitchfork stuck in his throat. The victim—Frank Hurst—had been leading a secluded life since the death of his second wife under suspicious circumstances five years earlier. Hurst's grown daughter, Rebecca, who left home after her step-mother's death, cannot be traced. The murder, coupled with intimations that the cold cases of two missing girls may be warming up, leaves Downes with his work cut out for him. Marrison, who was educated at the University of Edinburgh and now lives in Buenos Aires, expertly evokes a sense of place through descriptions of Cotswolds life. Downes's reminiscences of his Argentinian heritage lend color. The highly unusual denouement will catch most readers by surprise. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada). (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

With an intricate plot with numerous twists and an intriguing cop with a complex history, Marrison rivets the reader straight through to the novel’s chilling conclusion. An author to watch, [Marrison] scores high with this impressive debut.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Something wicked is afoot in Marrison's tense debut, set in the quiet picturesque villages of the English Cotswolds. . . . Marrison, who was educated at the University of Edinburgh and now lives in Buenos Aires, expertly evokes a sense of place through descriptions of Cotswolds life. [Chief Inspector Guillermo] Downes's reminiscences of his Argentinian heritage lend color. The highly unusual denouement will catch most readers by surprise.” —Publishers Weekly

“Marrison leaves just enough unexplained about his shrewd, moody protagonist to make you hope he'll return in a sequel.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Downes is an intriguing fish-out-of-water detective...Marrison's well-plotted mystery debut may appeal to fans of Elizabeth George and Peter Robinson.” —Booklist

“An intriguing debut....Taut and told with panache.” —The Daily Mail

From the Publisher

2015-06-03
A grisly death reopens past crimes in the Cotswolds. When Frank Hurst's housekeeper found his wife's body in the swimming pool of Dashwood Manor, Hurst had an airtight alibi. He was off buying a pony for his teenage daughter, Rebecca. Instead of sympathizing, however, his neighbors all turn against him. So does Rebecca, who runs away. Five years later, someone stabs Hurst through the throat with a pitchfork. DCI Downes, who'd been present at the earlier crime scene, is shocked by both the savagery of the current murder and the change in the house, which is barred, boarded, and bricked up. Since the murder, the reclusive Hurst had been living in squalor—except for his daughter's immaculate room. The Argentine/English Downes knows something of solitude and alienation himself. In fact, Graves, his new sergeant, wonders how Downes got that scar and why he's called Shotgun. The university-educated Graves, suddenly transferred from Oxford to remote Moreton-in-the-Marsh, also knows what exile feels like. But he and Downes have more pressing concerns than homesickness when the manor catches fire shortly after Hurst's murder, and Downes risks his life to carry out the remains of a woman hidden under the rubble at the back of the house. Suspicions about Hurst and the two young girls who went missing seven years ago, a long-ago incident on an icy pond, and Rebecca's reasons for leaving her doting father push Downes even harder to solve a crime he still feels guilty for not pursuing years ago. Just when he thinks he's getting a handle on it, new evidence and a new murder make him change direction in an increasingly complex case. In his fiction debut, Marrison leaves just enough unexplained about his shrewd, moody protagonist to make you hope he'll return in a sequel.

Kirkus Reviews