#indiechallenge – Common Murder (Val McDermid)

The blurb

Common Murder finds journalist Lindsay Gordon at the peace camp on Brownlow Common, reporting a case of alleged assault by Deborah, a peacewoman, on Rupert Crabtree, Chairman of the local opposition to the camp.

Then the body of Crabtree is found on common ground, victim of a vicious attack, and Deborah is accused of murder. Lindsay is plunged into an investigation with far-reaching political implications, in which no one – be they ratepayer or reporter, policeman or peacewoman – is wholly above suspicion.

The author

Val McDermid is of course a very big name in crime fiction these days; this was only her second novel, and the biography in the front talks more about her career as a journalist and her NUJ activity.

The publisher

The Women’s Press now seems to be defunct, but it used to put out a lot of feminist fiction and non-fiction. Its steam…