Frank Smith

When DCI Neil Paget and DS Tregalles investigate an apparently standard missing person case, it soon emerges that Mark Newman, an aspiring journalist, was on the trail of a hot story, and now he's disappeared, along with every scrap of potential evidence. But as bodies start to pile up, Paget is struggling to keep his mind on the job, given the erratic behaviour and unexplained absences of his new live-in lover . . .

When Antonia Halliday is found dead in a barn, her head and neck slashed with an old-fashioned sickle, Paget and Tregalles attend the scene. The victim is from Bromley Manor, the country home of a highly respected family with links to the chief constable, and Chief Superintendent Brock warns Paget to tread carefully. With all the evidence drawing Paget back to the manor, he soon finds himself at odds with his superiors - and the killer is not quite...

When a body is found having been bound, gagged, thrown off a bridge, and with the letter 'A' carved into his forehead, Detective Inspector Neil Paget has nothing to go in until another body appears in a similar condition.