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Political murder thriller set in LONDON

15th September 2020

Plague by Julie Anderson, political murder thriller set in LONDON.

Political murder thriller set in LONDON

The Palace of Westminster (otherwise known as the Houses of Parliament, the seat of parliament in England): “There are plenty of MPs who are decent, dutiful partners and parents at home in their constituencies who change character once they arrive at the Palace. It’s a world unto itself, a self-contained town full of gossip and plots”

I love a book that has a map at the front. London indeed is a strong setting in this political thriller. And the River Tyburn is at the heart of this novel, it is a river that is buried beneath the layers of history of this wonderful city. It almost seems that a series of modern day murders are linked by the route of the river.

Plague. I thought it had been obliterated. But I am wrong, There are still small cluster outbreaks around the world – Congo and Western U.S.A had small outbreaks in recent memory. So the panic engendered by the discovery of a modern day murder at the site of a plague pit causes people to demonstrate on the streets in the book, not believing the political line that there is nothing to worry about. Sound familiar on some level?

Back in medieval times people died in great numbers. Their bodies were unceremoniously dumped in ‘plague pits’. Archaeologists often discover these pits nowadays and one such pit is the opener to the book. A modern day body has been found. Rest assured, you cannot catch plague by being around a plague pit.

Cassandra is a disgraced civil servant who is helping to stop the killing spree of European nationals. The bodies of young people have been found, linked to historic sites around the capital, mutilated and clearly victims of salacious perpetrators. Rape, followed by mutilation and death. It seems that individuals are being sourced to order, young people lured for sexual exploitation. Evidence is beginning to mount that leads back to the Palace of Westminster. The rich and privileged clearly look after their own. Cassie has to cleave her way through the obfuscation and venal machinations of some of the people in government and their cohorts. It’s a nasty business and her life is under threat. The perpetrators will, it seems, stop at nothing. Power and money hold sway.

This is a well paced political thriller that kept me reading to the end.

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Check out Julie’s #TalkingLocationWith… feature, all about the setting for the novel!

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Catch Julie on Twitter and do check out her “Walking a book, walking a river” post where she shared the locations in the novel

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