The Bird Yard Author:J. Wallis Martin, Julia Wallis Martin Edgar Award Finalist Julia Wallis Martin has written a compulsively gripping novel of psychological suspense - critics are calling her the next Minette Walters When 12-year-old Joseph Coyne disappears and is assumed to have been abducted, Detective Parker makes a promise to the boy's mother: We'll get him back, alive. It proves to be a promise... more » that Parker cannot keep. When another young boy is missing under similar circumstances, the evidence leads Parker to an aviary or bird yard attached to an abandoned house. While the finches imprisoned in the aviary exert a magical appeal over the young boys who surreptitiously come to watch them, its owner is a shadowy figure whose hold over his young visitors seems far more sinister. Convinced that the killer is stalking his third victim, a child Parker knows, he enlists the help of a child psychologist to unravel a dark secret.« less
Excellent book. Very well written. Not gory, you knew bad things were happening but the author chose to let you imagine them rather than describe in detail.