After seventeen years, Brenda Thwaites Cryer returns to Parson's Fold with a shadowy past and the shadowy fortune. Now, she lay dead in Jackman's Cottage. And the only possible witness-her invalid mother-is missing.

For Inspector Mosley, this case is a radical departure from locating missing turkeys or thwarting orange thieves. But HQ has no one else available - no one, but whiz-kid Sergeant Beamish, whose task it becomes to keep a close eye on unpredictable Mosley. Yet how could Beamish fulfil his duty when Mosley dispatches him on ridiculous research missions from a Yorkshire castle, to a prestigious law firm, to a dentist in Ember Bay - only to discover Mosley poking about on the scene when he arrives? For Beamish, it is infuriating - until these haphazard leads net important clues that help quietly ingenious Mosley bag his very first killer.

'Mosley and Beamish are an appealing odd couple as cops, both likeable human beings. If this is the beginning of a new series, may there be more!' Washington Post



John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.