Inspector Rudolph Riley… recently divorced and a man trying desperately to rebuild both his life and the neglected farmhouse, which he’d bought as an antidote to his decree absolute and without any recourse to a surveyor’s report… is an experienced police officer faced with an increasing number of baffling, gruesome murders.
Recalled to duty from his first spell of leave since his divorce, he is immediately faced with a contaminated crime scene, the bloody corpse of the county’s archivist and the disappearance of his three star witnesses, who were all playing golf with the victim when she was brutally hacked to death.
At first, the murder appears motiveless, but as one body after another is laid out on the mortuary slab, it becomes increasingly obvious that there may well be a connection… a connection that worryingly may also involve Riley’s ex-wife who herself inexplicably vanishes during the course of his investigation, and his recently acquired derelict farmhouse… a property that unfortunately comes with its own gruesome history that dates back to a time during the Second World War when death and population displacement were more common than a pint of milk or a dozen eggs.
But if that wasn’t sufficient to make Riley wish he’d paid more attention to his failing marriage and in the process averted both the divorce courts and a building project that resembles Fleet Abbey after the dissolution of the monasteries, then the news that during his short leave of absence, Dolly, the latest waif and stray to be given his protection, has been dumped in a refuge from which she has subsequently disappeared… really makes him wonder whether a two week all-inclusive holiday spent sitting around the pool, drinking himself into a stupor, wouldn’t have been the more sensible way to avoid the vagaries of a ruined marriage.
Inevitably with one horrific murder following another, the investigation finally reaches a violent climax when the murder suspect is confronted head-on. Torn between apprehending the murderer and the safety of his family, Riley is ultimately forced to search the depths of his soul and with time conspiring against him, break the most inviolable law governing any civilised society.
Tragically, whilst some survive unscathed, others are less fortunate, resulting in an outcome that no one could have predicted and one which will have a profound effect on Rudolph Riley and those closest to him.