by Ann Cleeves
First published 2007
Julie Armstrong comes home to Northumberland after a night out and finds her son Luke dead. He has been strangled and laid in a bath, his body covered with wild flowers. Inspector Vera Stanhope has seen staged crime scenes before, but nothing quite like this. Then a second victim turns up: Lily Marsh, a young teacher, arranged in a coastal rock pool, flowers floating around her in the water. The killer is not hiding the bodies. He is displaying them. Vera works the Northumberland coast in a punishing summer heat, pushing at the edges of what people will admit. Luke and Lily seem to have no obvious connection, but a group of five friends who found Lily's body keeps pulling Vera's attention. They present themselves as tight and loyal. Vera does not believe it. Private lives crack open under the pressure of a murder inquiry, and what comes out is ugly. The killer is still close, still waiting, and the next arrangement is already taking shape.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, gritty, psychological, suspenseful
Tropes: detective-investigation, hidden-connections, multiple-victims, unreliable-suspects
Setting: Northumberland, Northumberland coast
Period: contemporary, summer
320 pages · Paperback · Macmillan Publishers Ltd
Content warnings: death, murder, violence