Death of Kings

I have reason to believe that the jade pendant accompanying this letter is the same one that disappeared from Miss Portia Blake's body in August 1938 . . . Since the piece could not have been stolen by the man who was hanged for Miss Blake's murder, the question arises: who else could have taken it?

And why?

1949. An unsigned letter arrives on the desk of Chief Inspector Derry of the Canterbury police. Enclosed is a jade pendant, identical to the one that went missing from the body of Portia Blake, an actress murdered a decade previously. The case had been shut quickly at the time - the accused vagrant giving a written confession and sentenced to the gallows - but in the police's haste to close the inquiry, the necklace was never recovered. Until now.

Inspector Madden is asked to investigate the letter's worrying claims by his old friend, and former Chief Inspector, Angus Sinclair, who fears the wrong man may have been hanged on his watch. But with a world war separating Madden from the murder, the truth will not come easy . . .

PRAISE FOR THE DEATH OF KINGS

"All the books by the less-than-prolific Rennie Airth are worth waiting for, and this fifth entry in the Inspector Madden series is outstanding." Sunday Express

An excellent and convincing evocation of wartime London C.J. Sansom Compelling . . . Airth's atmosphere of London at war is superb The Times Airth's John Madden novels are must-reads Daily Express An almost too beautifully written series New York Times Rennie Airth keeps us riveted Daily Mail All the books by the less-than-prolific Rennie Airth are worth waiting for, and this fifth entry in the Inspector Madden series is outstanding. It's 1949 and Madden, now retired, reinvestigates the apparently solved murder of an actress in a novel that recalls Agatha Christie's classic Five Little Pigs in its treatment of the themes of time and justice. There can be no higher praise Sunday Express

Rennie Airth was born in South Africa and has worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters. The first novel in his John Madden series, River of Darkness, was published in 1999 to huge critical acclaim, was shortlisted for four crime fiction awards and won the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in France. River of Darkness was followed by The Blood-Dimmed Tide, the CWA Ellis Peters Award shortlisted The Dead of Winter and now The Reckoning.

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