Briddon Gibbs

Sunset On Glorey Briddon Gibbs

"The Derwent Valley stretched south beyond him, flooded with golden sunlight from the solstice sun in the north west. Stanton Moor was fully illumined in glittering harsh gold to the right, and beyond that, the cooler emerald and lime green of the limestone country, stretched away to the south west. Hay scents came to his nostrils. There was the sound of sheep, the wind in the seeding grasses, a distant cow lowing, a cockerel far below and little else. Sighing, he was not quite sure why, Hope turned and looked up the Wye Valley towards Monsal Dale. The whole valley, as far as Fin Cop, where the river suddenly turns, shone under the blue. . ." By 1914 fissures were already appearing in society. The golden age of Edwardian England was over. Sunset was beginning on the Edwardian world. But it was also sunset for the bully Sergeant Glorey. Starting with an horrific murder that reaches far back into Derbyshire's past and culminating with the outbreak of war in 1914, in this volume of stories John Hope uncovers vicious violent sexual crimes that lie beneath the veneer of Victorian hypocrisy. As he deals with these horrors he must also confront the distorted view within society and himself of Oscar Wilde's "the crime that dare not speak its name". As the war draws ever nearer, Hope is embroiled in a life threatening confrontation with an Irish gang; yet this leads to his triumph over the bullying Sergeant Glorey and the outbreak of War in 1914 brings resolution of a kind for John Hope. SUNSET ON GLOREY is the second volume of the Derbyshire crime novels A LIFE OF HOPE, recounting the career of a Peak District police officer, John Hope, between 1902 and 1960. Set in the tranquil Peak District countryside, this fictional police officer confronts the darker side of Derbyshire life and conflicts within himself.