Naked to the Hangman - Couverture souple

Taylor's Lydmouth series is turning the classical detective story into a complex picture of our own past (Independent)

Expert, ingenious and absorbing. (Literary Review)

The most underrated crime writer in Britain today (Val McDermid)

Andrew Taylor is one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting novelist writing on crime in England today. Like Ruth Rendell he produces particularly good, emotionally complex psychological novels and rather better straight detective novels than she does in her Wexford series (Harriet Waugh, Spectator)

Taylor is an excellent writer (The Times)

Taylor is, as always, adept at showing the reality beneath the surface, as the characters interact and the unsavoury truth behind the murder is gradually revealed (Sunday Telegraph)

Full of nostalgic detail, this is old-fashioned crime at its best - perfect for a cold winter night in front of a roaring fire. (Sunday Times)

Andrew Taylor's latest addition to his "Lydmouth" murder series perfectly evokes that innocent world of the 1950s. Taylor builds a gripping story, as redolent of the period as brown linoleum. His subtle exploration of provincial society, with its gruesome underbelly, makes this a powerful extension to the series.

A retired police officer is murdered in the ruins of Lydmouth Castle. The reason for his death unfolds a decade earlier in Palestine during the chaotic closing months of the Mandate, the cradle of Middle Eastern terrorism.

As a young police officer, Inspector Richard Thornhil saw and did things which still haunt his dreams and make him fear for his sanity. Is he himself a killer? Now, in Lydmouth, the past has come back to claim him and he is under suspicion of another murder.

His wife Edith and his former lover Jill Francis form an uneasy alliance and try to help him. But there are many complications . . .