It begins with two deaths. The body of a young women is found, so peaceful she could be sleeping. The other, a ferocious murder beyond the railway lines at Stowmarket. Soon three apprentice carpenters are catapulted into the dangerous world of illegal hare coursing and drug abuse in the south Suffolk countryside. The characters find themselves embroiled in a dark and dangerous underworld, stretching from Wattisham to Hadleigh, Sudbury to Bury St Edmunds, and beyond the Orwell Bridge. All this is played out against a backdrop of manuscript restoration, totem pole carving and preparation for the annual raft race at Needham Market. Pauline Manders has drawn on her love of the Suffolk countryside to create a fresh, fast paced, witty crime novel. Her quirky, fallible main characters, previously encountered in Utterly Explosive and Utterly Fuelled, lead the reader through to a page turner of a finale.
Pauline Manders was born in London where she went on to train as an ENT surgeon. She moved to East Anglia with her husband and two children, where she worked for over 30 years before retiring from the NHS. She lives in rural Suffolk in a converted barn and gains inspiration for her crime novels by walking in the countryside with her Weimaraner, Otto. Since retirement, she has had time to write, pursue her shared interest with her husband in classic cars, and also attend a local carpentry group. She is still working on carving three diving ducks as legs for a small table - some projects are more of a challenge than others!