Cradle Song (The Song Cycle) - Softcover

"'Highly accomplished... Fans can look forward to his usual sharply realised characters operating in a tense, pressured environment'" (Independent)

"'A rewarding experience...This is murder at its most foul, crime at the deep end'" (Spectator)

"'His novel is something substantial and distinctive...Edric has a clear, almost rain-washed style, eminently suitable for his Hull setting...Cradle Song is a strong and serious novel, soberly entertaining and well worth your while'" (Literary Review)

"'Cradle Song is a superbly paced book... This is classic crime noir... Edric can also produce beautiful prose and arresting images as well as incisive social satire... Magnificently achieved'" (Giles Foden)

"'Deeply intelligent...Vertiginously devious...Twists like a fist around the throat of the reader'" (The Times)

An imprisoned paedophile and child murderer unexpectedly appeals his conviction. In return for a reduced sentence, he offers to implicate those involved in the crimes who were never caught; to provide evidence of Police corruption at the time of the original investigation; and, most importantly, to reveal where the corpses of several long-sought, but never found teenage girls are buried.

Unhappy at what may be about to happen, but at the same time desperate to locate the body of his own missing daughter, the father of one of these girls approaches Private Investigator Leo Rivers with a plea for help.

Rivers' enquiries stir cold and bitter memories. Long-dead enmities flare suddenly into violence and a succession of new killings. Everyone involved, then and now, and on both sides of the law, is unprepared for the suddenness and ferocity with which these old embers are fanned back into life. As the investigation progresses, it gathers momentum, and now must speed inexorably to the even greater violence and sadness of its conclusion.

The first of a trilogy of contemporary crime novels set in the city of Hull, Robert Edric's new novel is reminiscent of Chandler and Mosley, and yet remains uniquely British. Against the backdrop of Internet pornography, Police corruption and child murder, this dark and intense novel reads like a game of chess where each piece is invested with a deceptive significance.