Author: Patricia W Grey - Death Has a Thousand Doors
Proverse Prize Finalist 2010
Death has a Thousand Doors is set in the little known Pyrenean country of Andorra in the late 1990's. Family complications abound in this mystery. Australian Jane Burns is a recovering alcoholic with a troubled past. When she receives a letter inviting her to visit Andorra for the winding-up of her grandfather's multi-million dollar trust, she jumps at the opportunity to leave behind her troubles and humdrum life. She expects to stay with her half sister, Pearl, a photo journalist who moved to Andorra to escape an abusive marriage; but on her arrival Pearl is missing without explanation. The only clue to her whereabouts is an unlikely welcoming gift to Jane of a bottle of champagne.
Pearl's farther, Charles, an aloof historian, joins Jane in the search for Pearl. They discover a twisted web beginning with the founding of the family trust after the Second World War, and including financial misdoings, kidnapping and tobacco-smuggling. Jane and Charles try to separate threads that will lead them to Pearl from those that are simply the detritus of her daily life life as an investigative journalist. On the way, Jane meets a sympathetic village policeman. She also meets Pearl's lover, a prominent Andorran politician - but are these two men helping or hindering the investigation?
'A novel situated in Andorra is the finalist of the Proverse Prize' Translation -Bondia Andorra 1/12/11
The mystery novel Death Has A Thousand Doors by Patricia Grey was selected as a finalist of the Proverse Prize 2010 – a literary competition out of Hong Kong that gives awards to unpublished works throughout the world. The singularity of the story, written in English, is that the action occurs in Andorra.
The literary prize is the fruit of an initiative of two writers and university professors, Gillian and Verner Bickley, residents of Hong Kong who spend several months each year in Ordino. There they announce the semi-finalists of the prize and, later, in Hong Kong they announce the finalists and then the winning work.
Grey, an Australian living in Andorra since 1996, portrays her impressions of the country in this, her first novel. In the plot, set in the final years of the 1990s, an Australian comes to the Principality to see her sister – but she has disappeared. The protagonist falls in love with an Andorran police officer and in the story there is a melange of smuggling, contraband and suspicious politicians… Grey explains that her inspiration was the case of a Frenchwoman who disappeared from her hotel in Ordino.
The writer, Albert Villaró, expert in setting mystery novels in Andorra, has said that Grey’s work “offers a new perspective of our little world. So closed. So complex. So unknown.”
The novelist presented her novel at 5 Sentits, Ordino.
Story available in paperback and eBook
The story Death has a Thousand Doors is available in paperback and eBook and can be purchased online through the following websites
www.amazon.co.uk
www.amazon.com
www.chineseupress.com
www.proversepublishing.com