A Sounder of Swine

A SOUNDER OF SWINE
by
Edwin Corley (as Patrick Buchanan)

Dodd, Mead & Company – New York – 1974 Hardcover
 
A blue velvet jeweler’s box containing a human toe, a ransom note demanding twenty-five thousand pounds, and then the horrifying discovery of the kidnapped girl’s body in the swine run of a local farm. This was the case that brought Ben Shock, ex-New York City cop, and his beautiful brainy partner Charity Tucker to England.
 
The dead girl had lived with her rich American husband in the London suburb of Hillgate, the scene of a recent series of unpleasant incidents.  Well-to-do American residents had been blindfolded, held briefly, then released unharmed. These episodes had seemed only ugly practical jokes until Bernice Hull’s murder.
 
From the moment of their arrival, Ben and Charity meet with a strange hostility. An unknown speedster tries to run their car off the road, and at the local pub, The Sounder of Swine, where the pair center their activities, the surly farmers stare at them with cold hate. Then the maniac kidnapper leaves another of his victims lifeless at the pig farm – torn and rent by the voracious swine.
 
Before A SOUNDER OF SWINE reaches its terrifying conclusion, Charity will find herself marked for death – possessor of a dark secret dating back to the Second World War. Here is a chilling novel of suspense, possessing all the elements of a typical Ben and Charity crime – money, malice, and madness!