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VANTAGE POINT

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MacNeice and his team hunt a sophisticated serial killer who draws his inspiration from classic works of art.

‘Two bodies have been found in the master bedroom of a mansion in Dundurn’s old-money neighbourhood under the mountain. Howard Terry and his son, Matthew, have both been shot twice in the chest. Under Matthew’s body is a doll with blood-red cotton wadding spilling out its head. Nearby, a mannequin in a nightshirt lies on its back, with two bullet holes in its chest.

‘On the other side of town, a body is discovered below the Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall. Leaning against an enormous rock is a man in a cotton nightshirt wearing a paper mâché donkey’s head. Two rounds in the chest.

‘Something about the way the three bodies have been arranged suggests the murders are connected and triggers a memory in Detective Superintendent MacNeice of an image he saw years before…’

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"Not since P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh has there been a police inspector as sophisticated as MacNeice."

Toronto Star
"MacNeice is a splendid addition to the pantheon of detectives... More please, Mr. Thornley, and quickly."

The Vancouver Sun
"This series will be a real winner."

Margaret Cannon

The Globe and Mail
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"MacNeice is the Gretzky of Detectives"
This is the fourth book in the author's impressive series featuring Detective Superintendent MacNeice set in a fictional Eastern Canadian city that resembles Pittsburgh. MacNeice and his team of homicide detectives are confronted with a series of murders committed by a former Special Forces veteran who uses his victims to stage and produce photographic art of a high quality. MacNeice, recovering from the death of his beloved wife, is a uniquely compelling, multi-faceted character and inspiring leader of his team. Scott Thornley is a polished storyteller whose books just keep getting stronger and stronger.

Steele Curry

Amazon Reviewer

NEWS & REVIEWS

February 13 2019

The Globe and Mail: Six winter thrillers to take off the chill

MARGARET CANNONSPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL VANTAGE POINT (HOUSE OF ANANSI, 320 PAGES, $19.95, PAPER) House of Anansi continues to publish some of the best mysteries in the world, and Scott Thornley’s MacNeice series is one of them. The fourth installment is the best book so far and fans of the city of Hamilton […]

December 21 2018

Whodunit: Jack Batten (Toronto Star)

In the Toronto writer Scott Thornley’s fourth and most accomplished novel featuring MacNeice, he puts readers on edge in the opening pages and leaves them hanging out there until the authentically spectacular windup. MacNeice is head of the police homicide division in the city of Dundurn, a stand-in for Hamilton, Ont., Thornley’s own native town. […]

BIO

SCOTT THORNLEY grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, which inspired his fictional Dundurn. As president and creative director of Scott Thornley + Company, a strategic creative firm, Thornley worked with cultural and health science clients in Canada, the United States and Great Britain.

Over time, his love of graphic and typographic design grew to include writing the stories that would bring his client’s products and services to life. While he still works with select clients in Canada and the US, Scott has returned to his first loves, drawing and photography, to complement his ongoing passion for writing. Scott Thornley lives with his wife Shirley Blumberg in Toronto and in the southwest of France, where much of this book was written. Raw Bone follows Erasing Memory and The Ambitious City, the first two MacNeice Mystery novels.

Scott is published by House of Anansi Press, and represented by Westwood Creative Artists.

Photo credit: Robert Popkin

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