Coffin Road

Author: Peter May
Publisher: riverrun
ISBN: 1784293083
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY, THE ENZO FILES AND THE CHINA THRILLERS AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY 2021 'Peter May is one of the most accomplished novelists writing today' Undiscovered Scotland 'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May' New York Journal of Books PETER MAY MIXES MURDER, MYSTERY and MEMORY . . . AND MARKS HIS RETURN TO THE OUTER HEBRIDES A man stands bewildered on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris. He cannot remember who he is. The only clue to his identity is a folded map of a path named the Coffin Road. He does not know where this search will take him. A detective from Lewis sits aboard a boat, filled with doubt. DS George Gunn knows that a bludgeoned corpse has been discovered on a remote rock twenty miles offshore. He does not know if he has what it takes to uncover how and why. A teenage girl lies in her Edinburgh bedroom, desperate to discover the truth about her scientist father's suicide. Two years on, Karen Fleming still cannot accept that he would wilfully abandon her. She does not yet know his secret. Coffin Road follows three perilous journeys towards one shocking truth - and the realisation that ignorance can kill us. LOVED COFFIN ROAD? Read the first book in Peter May's acclaimed China thrillers series, THE FIREMAKER LOVE PETER MAY? Buy his new thriller, THE BLACK LOCH

The Corpse Roads of Cumbria

Author: Alan Cleaver
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781985190344
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
This is the black and white version. There is also a full colour version on Amazon. Criss-crossing the Cumbrian landscape are many trods, paths, lonnings and other ancient trackways. Included among these are several corpse roads. The enigmatic name hints at their curious origins. These paths were used until the 18th Century to transport the dead from the remote villages to the 'mother' church for burial. Eventually villagers petitioned for their own churches and burial rights but the corpse roads remained. Alan Cleaver and Lesley Park have researched these ancient paths and the stories surrounding them. The book also explores Cumbrian funeral customs and superstitions.

The Coffin Roads

Author: Ian Bradley
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
ISBN: 1788855086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
'Coffin roads' along which bodies were carried for burial are a marked feature of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands and islands – many are now popular walking and cycling routes. This book journeys along eight coffin roads to discover and explore the distinctive traditions, beliefs and practices around dying, death and mourning in the communities which created and used them. The result is a fascinating snapshot into place and culture. After more than a century when death was very much a taboo subject, this book argues that aspects of the distinctive West Highland and Hebridean way of death and approach to dying and mourning may have something helpful and important to offer to us today. Routes covered in this book are: The Kilmartin Valley – the archetypal coffin road in this ritual landscape of the dead. The Street of the Dead on Iona – perhaps the best known coffin road in Scotland. Kilearnadil Graveyard, Jura – a perfect example of a Hebridean graveyard. The coffin road through Morvern to Keil Church, Lochaline - among the best defined and most evocative coffin roads today. The Green Isle, Loch Shiel, Ardnamurchan - the oldest continuously used burial place anywhere in Europe. The coffin road on Eigg – with its distinctive 'piper's cairn' where the coffin of Donald MacQuarrie, the 'Great Piper of Eigg', was rested. The coffin road from Traigh Losgaintir to Loch Stocinis on Harris - popular with walkers and taken as the title for a best-selling thriller by Peter May. The coffin road on Barra – A detailed study of burial practices on Barra in the early 1950s provides a fascinating record of Hebridean attitudes to dying, death and mourning.

The Coffin Path

Author: Katherine Clements
Publisher: Review
ISBN: 1472204298
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
**Longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown** An eerie and compelling ghost story set on the dark wilds of the Yorkshire moors. For fans of The Witchfinder's Sister and The Silent Companions, this gothic tale will weave its way into your imagination and chill you to the bone. 'Spine-tingling... the scariest ghost story I have read in a long time' Barbara Erskine 'A wonderful, macabre evocation of a lost way of life' The Times 'Like something from Emily Bronte's nightmares' Andrew Taylor, author of The Ashes of London Maybe you've heard tales about Scarcross Hall, the house on the old coffin path that winds from village to moor top. They say there's something up here, something evil. Mercy Booth isn't afraid. The moors and Scarcross are her home and lifeblood. But, beneath her certainty, small things are beginning to trouble her. Three ancient coins missing from her father's study, the shadowy figure out by the gatepost, an unshakeable sense that someone is watching. When a stranger appears seeking work, Mercy reluctantly takes him in. As their stories entwine, this man will change everything. She just can't see it yet. What readers are saying about The Coffin Path: 'A fantastic eerie ghost story to settle down with on a winters night' 'Compelling and chilling, the slow build-up of tension had me completely on edge' 'I couldn't put it down. I felt I was there on the moors, being watched by the unseen'

The Coffin Trail

Author: Martin Edwards
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1615950524
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
"...a beautifully-evoked sense of the Lake District and an interesting and diverse group of characters. Martin Edwards got plenty of kudos for his Harry Devlin series, and he should get even more for this one. His DCI Hannah Scarlett is a fine creation." —Peter Robinson, New York Times bestselling author Oxford historian and TV personality Daniel Kind and his new lover, Miranda, both want to escape to a new life. On impulse they buy Tarn Cottage in Brackdale, an idyllic valley in the Lake District that Daniel knew as a boy, a place so remote that the dead had to be carried out over the peaks on pack animals along the ancient Coffin Trail. Tarn Cottage was once home to Barrie Gilpin, an autistic youth suspected of a savage murder. A young woman visitor to the valley had been found laid out on the Sacrifice Stone, an ancient pagan site up on the fell. Barrie fell to his death near the crime scene before he could be questioned. All these years later, Daniel retains his belief in Barrie's innocence and questions his own policeman father's handling of the case. When DCI Hannah Scarlett and her squad launch a cold case review, Brackdale's skeletons begin to rattle. The wild geography of the Lakes District plays against local literary references, all backdrop to the lives of villagers and outsiders drawn to this beautiful spot—but for what reasons? The Coffin Trail launches a new series by a master British hand.

The Road

Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307267458
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). • From the bestselling author of The Passenger A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

Author: Peter Troy
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385534493
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Book Description
An engrossing, epic American drama told from four distinct perspectives, spanning the first major wave of Irish immigration to New York through the end of the Civil War. Four unique voices; two parallel love stories; one sweeping novel rich in the history of nineteenth-century America. This remarkable debut draws from the great themes of literature—famine, war, love, and family—as it introduces four unforgettable characters. Ethan McOwen is an Irish immigrant whose endurance is tested in Brooklyn and the Five Points at the height of its urban destitution; he is among the first to join the famed Irish Brigade and becomes a celebrated war photographer. Marcella, a society girl from Spain, defies her father to become a passionate abolitionist. Mary and Micah are slaves of varying circumstances, who form an instant connection and embark on a tumultuous path to freedom. All four lives unfold in two beautiful love stories, which eventually collide. Written in gorgeous language that subtly captures the diverse backgrounds of the characters, and interspersed with letters, journals, and dreams, this unforgettable story, rendered in cinematic detail, is about having faith in life's great meaning amidst its various tangles.

Vertical Coffin

Author: Stephen J. Cannell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429902620
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 754

Book Description
A nightmarish series of events sweeps LAPD's Sergeant Shane Scully and his wife (and boss), Alexa, into the vortex of an enormous, jurisdictional firestorm. First, a sheriff's deputy, a friend of Shane's, is gunned down while serving a routine search warrant. His fellow deputies blame the incident on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom they angrily accuse of having failed to warn them that the suspect had a huge arsenal of illegal weapons in his house. Soon thereafter, a member of the ATF Situation Response Team is shot to death, followed by the sniper murder of the Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau. At the request of the Mayor, LAPD, as an uninvolved and unbiased agency, assigns Shane Scully to investigate. He is given an impossible deadline to find a solution before these two elite and deadly SWAT Teams kill each other off amid a hurricane of horrible publicity. Shane pursues his investigation in a direction that neither his chief nor his wife agrees with, and succeeds in putting himself, his loved ones, and his career in terrible jeopardy before he finally discovers the shocking and deadly truth.

The Coffin Confessor

Author: Bill Edgar
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 176014570X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
Imagine you are dying with a secret. Something you’ve never had the courage to tell your friends and family. Or a last wish – a task you need carried out before you can rest in peace. Now imagine there’s a man who can take care of all that, who has no respect for the living, who will do anything for the dead. Bill Edgar is the Coffin Confessor – a one-of-a-kind professional, a man on a mission to make good on these last requests on behalf of his soon-to-be-deceased clients. And this is the extraordinary story of how he became that man. Bill has been many things in this life: son of one of Australia’s most notorious gangsters, homeless street-kid, maximum-security prisoner, hard man, family man, car thief, professional punching bag, philosopher, inventor, private investigator, victim of horrific childhood sexual abuse and an activist fighting to bring down the institutions that let it happen. A survivor. As a little boy, he learned the hard way that society is full of people who fall through the cracks – who die without their stories being told. Now his life’s work is to make sure his clients’ voices are heard, and their last wishes delivered: the small-town grandfather who needs his tastefully decorated sex dungeon destroyed before the kids find it. The woman who endured an abusive marriage for decades before finding freedom. The outlaw biker who is afraid of nothing . . . except telling the world he is in love with another man. The dad who desperately needs to track down his estranged daughter so he can find a way to say he's sorry, with one final gift. Confronting and confounding, heartwarming and heartbreaking, The Coffin Confessor is a compelling story of survival and redemption, of a life lived on the fringes of society, on both sides of the law – and what that can teach you about living your best life . . . and death.

The Longest Road

Author: Philip Caputo
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805094466
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Traces the author's 2011 road trip from the southernmost to the northernmost points of the United States to experience firsthand the country's diversity and political tensions in the face of a historic economic recession.