'The police procedural novels of John Penn continue to anatomize the internal operations of the police force without glamorizing them.' - Ian A. Bell, BRITISH BOOK NEWS. When Lydia Vail's battered body is found in her secluded house in the Cotswold village of Little Chipping, suspicion inevitably falls on her son, for Oliver has disappeared. But Oliver was said to be devoted to his widowed mother, a possessive woman who has made herself far from popular. In his investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Dick Tansey of the Thames Valley Police Force unearths an old and surprising secret - but by the time he is able to identify the murderer, the killer has struck again.
