A five year old girl disappears with a mentally-disabled man, never to be seen again. It's obvious he abducted her, just as it's obvious they must both be dead, their remains lost somewhere in the marshes surrounding the remote, Essex village where they both lived.
But it's not obvious to Pippa Golding. She has information, a knowledge of lies told at the time. She doesn't know why certain people lied nor how far those untruths went in aiding two people to disappear, but she intends to find out.
Why now? It's been forty years after all, but Pippa has her own reasons for wanting people to remember. There's truth out there amongst the hearsay and gossip. It just needs those involved to face up to the past and reflect on what really happened that day.
But it won't be easy. There are more secrets than even Pippa can imagine and opening up old wounds won't necessarily get to the truth, but Pippa is determined to try.
Stuart Bone was born and raised in Essex, England. He spent twenty years working as an accountant in the London banking industry before giving it all up to concentrate full time on his writing career.
He started out writing humorous fiction and sets each of these books in his fictional county of Tenhamshire.
Stuart then branched out into mystery fiction. He continues to write in both genres and has seen his writing career go from strength to strength.
Having read Stuart Bone's other books, the humorous ones, this was sitting on my bookshelf for some time. Big error on my part as this was a cracking read, finished in two sittings. It's hard to review without giving much away, other than to say there are brilliantly written characters, backstories that intertwine and keep you reading through to the end.