Crime Series

‘She reached into the pram and placed her hands on the cotton blanket. It was still warm. But her smiling, new baby sister, with her wide blue-grey eyes, was gone…’

Twenty five years later, three bodies are found at a ramshackle cottage in the Irish countryside, and Detective Iris Locke is sick to her stomach. The victims are Anna Crowe and her two young children.

Iris has only recently joined the Limerick Murder Squad. Against her father’s advice, she’s working the narrow lanes and green hills of her childhood. Iris still remembers Anna, who was just a small girl when her baby sister was snatched, never to be seen again. It was the one case Iris’ own father never solved, and Iris can’t help but wonder if the two crimes are connected.

She’ll stop at nothing to find Anna justice, but a fire has destroyed almost all the physical evidence, and Limerick is the same small town she remembers: everybody protects their neighbours, and Iris has been away for too long.

Can Iris unpick the lies beneath the surface of her pretty hometown, and catch the most twisted individual of her career, when reopening the old case means reopening old wounds for her team, the rest of the community, and her own father?

Fans of Patricia Gibney, Angela Marsons and L.J. Ross won’t want to miss this – the first book in a gripping and unputdownable new crime series.

‘Rachel. They must have made a mistake. A mother would know?’ She let her words pour into the emptiness of the kitchen. She began to shiver. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said softly and rocked back and forth, as if she was a huge child, seeking solace in the simple gesture.

When young, pretty nurse Rachel McDermott is found murdered in the harsh lights of the hospital kitchen where she works, her mother can’t accept the news, and the small Irish town of Corbally reels in disbelief. Rushing to the scene, Detective Iris Locke vows to find the sick killer, whatever it takes.

Iris quickly discovers Rachel’s friend, Eleanor Marshall, was spotted fleeing the scene of the crime, and sends a search party to the icy-cold woods near the Comeragh mountains. All the evidence points to Eleanor, but Iris feels drawn to descriptions of this sweet but troubled young woman, estranged from her family, and can’t shake the feeling Eleanor shouldn’t be a suspect.

But then Eleanor’s sister is found dead in the area Eleanor is hiding.

Desperate to find The truth, Iris works round the clock to uncover the strange, shadowy figure Rachel met the night before she died, and is convinced she must get to Eleanor before the killer finds her. But as she sets out for the woods alone, what if it’s Iris whose life is in terrible danger?

An absolutely gripping mystery thriller, perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Robert Dugoni and LJ Ross.