London: Faber And Faber, 1977
8vo, first edition, original red cloth lettered in gilt on spine, price-clipped dust-jacket
When a young girl is found murdered in a field, the scientific examination of the exhibits is just a routine job for the staff of Hoggatt's forensic science laboratory. But nothing could have prepared them for the brutal death of one of their own. When a senior biologist is found dead in his laboratory, Commander Dalgliesh is called to the bleak fens of East Anglia, where the murderer is lying in wait to strike again.
Adapted for television (ITV) in 1983 starring Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh.
Annotated on 23 pages. Approximately 470 words.
...The reader is kept fully in the picture as clues are uncovered; nothing relevant and known to the two detectives is concealed. This conforms with the 'fair play' rule laid down in the so-called golden age between the wars. To that extent this is a conventional English detective story told in a conventional mode but I aimed to make it more.
...The reader is kept fully in the picture as clues are uncovered; nothing relevant and known to the two detectives is concealed. This conforms with the 'fair play' rule laid down in the so-called golden age between the wars. To that extent this is a conventional English detective story told in a conventional mode but I aimed to make it more.
...The reader is kept fully in the picture as clues are uncovered; nothing relevant and known to the two detectives is concealed. This conforms with the 'fair play' rule laid down in the so-called golden age between the wars. To that extent this is a conventional English detective story told in a conventional mode but I aimed to make it more.