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Absolution

Published
Jan 2007
Main Genre
Police Procedural Police Procedural
Rating
Pages
416

About This Book

A consummate debut novel of crime and obsession that The Washington Post dubbed "one of the year's best literary thrillers."

It's twenty years since police detective Alan McAlpine has set foot in Patrickhill Station―and more than twenty years since he fell forever in love with the mute, faceless woman he called Anna as she lay dying in Glasgow's Western Infirmary. Daily he'd watched over her, and they had begun to communicate with each other, she by moving her wounded fingers. Her fingers could not tell the sad, unseasoned police cadet her name, however, or name for him the father of her newborn baby girl or identify the assailants who had flung the acid in her once incomparably beautiful face. Or tell him how she'd smuggled a cache of uncut diamonds into Scotland.Now McAlpine is back in Patrickhill, where he's been summoned to head up the investigation of a disturbing murder case. Two women―their arms outstretched, their legs together and feet crossed at the ankle―have already died at the hands of a man the press has tagged the Crucifixion Killer.With crimes in the present continually detouring both McAlpine and the elusive killer he pursues into an unredeemed past, the mystery in this steely, piercing psychological thriller is as gripping as its twists are surprising. And absolution proves to be extreme.

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Paperback

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Mar 2009 Pegasus ISBN 1605980269
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Apr 2008 Penguin ISBN 0141029242
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Sep 2012 Penguin (UK) ISBN 140590934X
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Sep 2012 Penguin ISBN B01K90H7GA
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May 2020 Canongate Books ISBN 178689873X
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Hardcover

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First Edition Oct 2007 Pegasus ISBN 1933648414
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eBook

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Feb 2009 Pegasus ISBN 0594434505
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Sep 2012 Speaking Volumes ISBN 1628157836
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Nov 2017 Speaking Volumes ISBN B077MMWTJD
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Audio

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Audible
Apr 2008 Whole Story Audiobooks ISBN B00723RHCC
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