An irresistible autumnal mystery helmed by a complex heroine, perfect for fans of Val McDermid.
November, 1957: Six teenage girls walk in the churning Derbyshire mists. Their voices carrying across the fields, they follow the old train tracks into the dark tunnel of the Cutting. Only five appear on the other side. October, 2014: a dying mother, feverishly fixated on a friend from her childhood, makes a plea: 'Find Valerie.' Mina's elderly mother had never discussed her childhood with her daughter before. So who was Valerie? Where does her obsession spring from? DC Connie Childs is partnered up with new arrival to Bampton, Peter Dahl. Following up on what seems like a simple natural death, DC Childs' old instincts kick in, pointing her right back to one cold evening in 1957. As Connie starts to broaden her enquiries, the investigation begins to spiral increasingly close to home.
"Familiar police procedural shenanigans are given a macabre and unsettling twist." GUARDIAN
Detective Constable Connie Childs is dragged from her bed to the fire-wrecked property on Cross Farm Lane. Three bodies discovered, a family obliterated, their deaths all seem to point to one conclusion - one mother, one murderer. But D.C. Childs realises it is the fourth body, the one they cannot find, that holds the key to the mystery. Her determination to unmask the murderer might cost her the thing she cares about most: her career.
2004: In Bampton, Derbyshire, Lena Fisher is arrested for suffocating her husband, Andrew.
Spring 2016: A year after Lena's release from prison, Andrew is found murdered in a disused mortuary. Who was the man Lena killed twelve years ago and why did she lie about his identity? When Lena disappears, her sister, Kat, follows a trail of clues delivered by a teenage boy. Sarah Ward's second novel confirms her place as one of the UK's most exciting new crime writers.
You can't bury the truth forever...
Derbyshire, January 1978. Two girls go missing: Rachel Jones returns, Sophie Jenkins is never found. Thirty years later, Sophie Jenkins's mother commits suicide. Rachel Jones has tried to put the past behind her. But news of the suicide re-opens old wounds and Rachel realises that the only way she can have a future is to finally discover what really happened all those years ago.
This is a story about loss and family secrets, and how often the very darkest secrets are those that are closest to you.
