Patricia Hall - Free Library Land Online - Middle Grade

Playing with Fire

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 10:58:09 +0200

The death of a young girl leads Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard and Kate O'Donnell into a hotbed of simmering tensions, violence and threats in sixties' Soho.
London, 1964. At three a.m. on a chilly autumn morning, Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard is called to a club in Greek Street where a young girl has fallen to her death from a top-floor window. A new breed of fans is flocking to Soho's rock and roll haunts. But was it a tragic accident, or something more sinister?
Meanwhile, Kate O'Donnell, Harry's photographer girlfriend, receives a call from her Liverpudlian ex, Dave Donovan, pleading for her help. His new squeeze, Bernie Collins, set off for London in the hope of getting a recording contract, but she's not answering her phone. Where is she?
With simmering tensions, intimidation and terror rife on Soho's streets, Harry and Kate are drawn into its dark underbelly in their attempts to find answers.

Dead on Arrival

Mon, 15 Nov 1999 11:23:27 +0200

Journalist Laura Ackroyd is on the move after a painful but all too familiar parting of ways with her sometime boyfriend, Yorkshire DCI Michael Thackeray. She's headed for London in the hopes of clearing her mind and focusing on her work for a change.

When she witnesses the murder of a teenaged immigrant boy, however, Laura's quick getaway turns into a drawn out nightmare, which is simultaneously the professional opportunity of a lifetime and a personal catastrophe in the making. Her plan is to write a feature article for a London paper on the murder and its social and cultural implications, but revisiting the bloody memory of that night is taking a psychological toll.

Meanwhile, DCI Thackeray is biding his time back in Bradfield. He's depressed at Laura's absence and faces a baffling missing persons case. A beautiful local high school girl has disappeared, and conflicting stories about her last known movements have Thackeray scratching his head. Safi Haque is by all accounts a dutiful Muslim daughter, but her parents don't want to admit what might have happened to her. When days go by with no trace of the girl, Thackeray begins to fear the worst.

Neither Laura nor Thackeray are very far from the other's thoughts, despite the geographical distance between the erstwhile lovers. As they separately go about strikingly similar tasks, neither can imagine the ways in which their seemingly unconnected situations may ultimately bring them together...or perhaps tear them viciously apart.

Dying Fall

Tue, 15 Nov 1994 11:32:24 +0200

An oppressive heat wave has blanketed Bradfield, Yorkshire, sharpening tensions in the crime-ridden council estate known as the Heights. The latest grievance is the nightly joy-riding of youths racing stolen cars around the residential streets. Next, reports surface of children being assaulted, and Inspector Michael Thackeray sends in an undercover police officer. A young girl is killed, though, and the residents' unease turns to anger. Covering the situation in the Heights, reporter Laura Ackroyd notices similarities between the current death and one that occurred ten years earlier. She's been researching the case of Stephen Webster, found guilty of murdering his step-sister, for a television program reexamining the crime. Stephen Webster has already been in jail for a decade, however. Could he have been innocent all those years ago, or is someone playing a twisted game of copycat? Working from different sides of the case, Ackroyd and Thackeray face deceit, fraud, and torn loyalties while exploring their growing attraction to each other in this mystery of dazzling ingenuity and suspense.

Dust to Dust

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:32:25 +0200

DCI Michael Thackeray is horrified when he learns that Laura Ackroyd, his newly pregnant girlfriend, has been persuaded to investigate the case of a young miner convicted of the murder of a policeman during the coal strike twenty years before. Thackeray had been a young copper then, only briefly involved, but he was well aware of the virtual war which had broken out between the strikers and the police and knew that feelings still ran high in the devastated pit villages which had never recovered from the defeats of 1984. He watches as Laura is sucked into the campaign to free Billy Baxter, who has served twenty years for a murder he still claims he did not commit. Old tensions surface and the village is devastated yet again by the suspicious death of one of the former strike leaders and the arrival of a former London copper Intent of keeping Billy in jail and implicating others in the crime. Thackeray and Laura's relationship is put under strain as the DCI is put in charge of the investigation and the village is convulsed by hatreds old and new. But in spite of their best efforts, official and unofficial, nothing it seems can prevent a violent end to twenty years of subterfuge and injustice.

The Italian Girl

Sun, 15 Nov 1998 12:36:15 +0200

A crime novel which features journalist Laura Ackroyd and her lover Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray. When building work unearths the bones of a young woman, bitter memories and old hatreds surface, and someone is willing to kill in order to conceal the identity of the murderer.

Dead Beat

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:42:37 +0200

A tense and gripping mystery set in 1960s London and Liverpool - When photographer Kate O'Donnell takes off for London from swinging Liverpool she has two things in mind: to make a career and to track down her missing older brother. But when she does find a trace of Tom, he's still missing - leaving behind a dead flatmate and some very suspicious cops, including Harry Barnard of the vice squad. Kate determines to clear her brother's name, but her investigations take her on a terrifying journey, and soon she isn't sure if even the charming Barnard can be trusted . . .

Devil's Game

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:42:36 +0200

Karen Bastable is a woman longing for more excitement in her life, and illicit group meetings in a local forest have added plenty of spark and pleasure recently. That is until one night she meets a man in search of a more sinister kind of gratification. When her abandoned car is discovered days later, the case becomes a race against time and it is up to DCI Michael Thackeray to find her alive, that is, if he isn't too late. Meanwhile, Thackeray's girlfriend, Laura Ackroyd is struggling with the burden of keeping her unexpected pregnancy a secret from him. As she barely copes with her demanding workload as a journalist, Laura is then dealt the troublesome task of profiling Sir David Murgatroyd, a wealthy venture capitalist with plans to take over a local school. Yet while his tragic family history is widely acknowledged, he alternatively remains a mystery. So what has he to hide?

Death in a Far Country

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:42:35 +0200

The dark of the night. Two girls are running for their lives. Terrified, one falls and, unable to get up, she forces her friend to go on without her, to save herself. For her, there is no escape as their attackers close in…When the body of an unidentified young girl is found in the canal, DCI Thakeray is put on the case. Meanwhile, Thackeray’s girlfriend, Laura Ackroyd, is reporting on the controversial appointment of a female chairman at the town’s football club. It seems some people are prepared to stoop to any depths to force her out.Thackeray and Ackroyd soon suspect their two inquiries are linked, but as Laura becomes more involved in her case, does she risk putting Thackeray’s job – and her life – in danger?

Review

'Well-observed characters, a thoroughly modern theme... A fine achievement.' REGINALD HILL 'What Raymond Chandler did for the mean streets of LA, Patricia Hall is busy doing for Bradford' TELEGRAPH AND ARGUS 'A thoughtful and well-written novel, with believable characters and a hard-to-solve mystery' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

About the Author

PATRICIA HALL is the pen-name of journalist Maureen O'Connor. She was born and brought up in West Yorkshire, which is where she chose to set her acclaimed series of novels featuring reporter Laura Ackroyd and DCI Michael Thackeray. She is married, with two grown-up sons, and now lives in Oxford.

By Death Divided

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:42:38 +0200

Caught by the current, her body tumbles this way and that in the black waters of the River Maze, dragged inexorably forward, her long dark hair trailing out behind her. For days she continues on, unseen, making a lonely passage through villages and marshes, until, at last, her journey comes to an end in a tangle of debris washed down with the flood waters.Laura Ackroyd, the journalist girlfriend of DCI Michael Thackeray, becomes drawn into the plight of Julie Holden and her daughter Anna when she writes an article about domestic abuse. Suffering violence at the hands of her husband, Julie takes flight to a women's refuge. But her dreams of safety are shattered when young Anna goes missing...

Death in Dark Waters

Mon, 25 Nov 2002 19:42:36 +0200

After a night out clubbing, the son of a wealthy local businessman is knocked down and left in a coma. His father wants to know who supplied him with ecstasy and Michael Thackery is put on the case. Meanwhile his girlfriend, Laura Ackroyd, is conducting her own investigation into the local drugs problem. The Wuthering Heights estate is controlled by the dealers and they undermine any attempts to improve life in the area. So it is no surprise when the local youth training project is targeted by vandals, but when heroin is found on site and the staff arrested, it seems as though things have started to get serious...**

From Booklist

Set in Yorkshire, Hall's latest is part police procedural, part thriller, part commentary on problems in modern English culture. At the center of the story is policeman Michael Thackeray, whose personal life is in turmoil--he hasn't recovered from the tragic deaths of his wife and baby son, and he dulls his pain through a love affair with the bottle. Fortunately, this hasn't affected his job performance, at least so far. Thackeray's new love interest is reporter Laura Ackroyd, whose nose for news often brings her into conflict with both Michael and his bosses. When a teenager is injured in a hit-and-run accident after visiting a nightclub and apparently taking Ecstasy, both Thackeray and Ackroyd get involved in the investigation. They soon find a link between this incident and the death of another teenager on a local housing estate, and their subsequent investigation takes them deep into the dark side of the local drug trade. Well written, with a complex and entertaining plot, and plenty of suspense. Emily Melton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

'Hall's style is refreshingly clean and uncluttered, and her narrative achieves a powerful momentum as the layers of deception are stripped away. Her journalist protagonist is an intelligently realised character.' Times Literary Supplement

Death Trap

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:42:33 +0200

Kate O'Donnell, fresh from her adventures in Dead Beat, discovers yet again there's a darker side to London in the Swinging Sixties. Beatlemania has reached London, but young photographer Kate O'Donnell soon discovers a darker side of the city when a prostitute is found murdered off the Portobello Road. A West Indian immigrant, Nelson Mackintosh, is arrested, and simmering racial tension reaches breaking point. Convinced of Nelson's innocence, Kate determines to track down the real killer. But when her activities attract the attention of notorious gangster King Devine, not even Kate's old sparring partner DS Harry Barnard can ensure her safety. "Colorful characters, social commentary, and sixties ambience all add to the appeal of this engaging British mystery" "Hall's second begins where her first leaves off, mixing straight-up procedural with a dose of local color."

Dressed to Kill

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:42:35 +0200

It's 1963. A new band called the Rolling Stones is beginning to make its mark and the mini-skirt is coming into fashion. For young Liverpudlian photographer Kate O'Donnell, it's an exciting time to be in the capital - especially as she's on secondment to an up-and-coming fashion photographer's studio. But there's a darker side to 1960s' London, Kate discovers, when the naked, battered body of a teenage prostitute is found amongst the rubbish bins behind a Soho jazz club - and it turns out the victim was a former model at the studio where Kate's working. When a second young model disappears, Kate enlists her friend DS Harry Barnard's help to find out exactly what's going on. Together, they uncover the first of several dark secrets surrounding Andrei Lubin's fashion studio and the notorious Jazz Cellar.

Deep Waters

Fri, 25 Nov 2016 19:42:34 +0200

A past crime causes new murder in the latest intriguing Kate O'Donnell mystery
1964. Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard has been ordered to track down notorious Soho club owner Ray Robertson, who hasn't been seen for several days. The case takes on a greater urgency when a battered body is discovered at the gym Ray owns. Is Ray the killer ... or is he a victim?
Photographer Kate O'Donnell meanwhile is working on a feature about the regeneration of Canvey Island, finally being rebuilt after the devastating East Coast floods of 1953. But as Kate and Harry are about to discover, the Canvey Island floods, the murder and Ray Robertson's disappearance are connected in more ways than one ...

Blood Brothers

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:42:34 +0200

A badly mutilated corpse is discovered on the site of the new Centre Point Tower currently under construction in London’s West End. With fingers and toes severed, it has all the hallmarks of a gangland killing. But Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard isn’t convinced.

Meanwhile, a key witness has disappeared before the upcoming trial of East End gangster Georgie Robertson. Is there a connection? At the same time, young photographer Kate O’Donnell’s current assignment with the crime reporter of a national newspaper is causing a rift in her relationship with Harry Barnard. And Harry’s association with Georgie Robertson’s gangster brother Ray is causing concern among his colleagues. Has the line between criminal and copper become too blurred? As the atmosphere of suspicion intensifies, Kate finds that her role with Globe reporter Carter Price is about to lead her into unexpected danger.**

From Booklist

In their fourth outing, London Vice Squad Detective Harry Barnard and photographer Kate O’Donnell find themselves looking at gangster Georgie Robertson from different angles. Was Robertson responsible for the body that was recently discovered (sans fingers and toes) as concrete was being poured at a new construction site? Does Harry’s childhood with Georgie and his brother, Ray, make it impossible for him to be impartial in his investigation? And sweet Kate? She’s excited to be given an assignment at a big newspaper, but is it her photographic chops or her relationship with Barnard that got her the gig? Hall’s sharply drawn 1960s setting sets this series apart from so many other gruff-cop-and-spunky-amateur-lady pairs populating today’s crime fiction. --Karen Keefe

Review

“Hall’s sharply drawn 1960s setting sets this series apart” (Booklist) "The tension builds as the different plot lines come together, but Hall never loses control over the varying threads. She also does a terrific job of explaining the inner working of the press at a time when newspapers still mattered." (Publishers Weekly)