A Study in Stone

by Michael Campling

Dan Corrigan wants to disappear, but life has other ideas.
Burnt out by the pressures of London life, Dan escapes to a Devonshire village, but he soon discovers an intriguing mystery.
An ancient legend, a coded message carved in stone, and a secret swept beneath the carpet by an upper-class all compelling clues.

And then a crime is committed.
Dan promises to solve the case, along with his new neighbour and unlikely ally, Alan, but they uncover a hidden history, and there are those who want the past undisturbed.
This challenge could be the tonic Dan needs, but once he begins, there’s no going back.

Can you solve this British mystery?
Find out when you join Dan and Alan as they chase down the clues in A Study in Stone.

330 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 21, 2025

About the author

See also GoodReads Author's profile under Mikey Campling

Reviews

[Cidney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was different wasn't it! Dan Corrigan was working for a very large global company who didn't seem too honest and they have now fired him, and they have taken away his car, his credit card, his mobile, his laptop, his gym, medical and dental memberships, he had lost everything and wasn't sure how he was going to pay his rent on his apartment in an expensive part of London. He's panicking and has to get away for a while to ground himself again. He rings his sister who lives in San Francisco who says he can stay at her cottage in Devon as she plans to sell it anyway so can he tidy it up and paint it a bit. Yep he can do that. He rummages through his plastic box of unwanted outofdate stuff to throw away and finds his ancient phone and surprisingly it charges and still works, and Louise says he can take her ancient car which is still parked at their mother's house if he needs it. He does.

He then begins the drive down to Devon and has trouble finding the village all he comes across are very narrow roads which seem to be never ending, until he arrives at the cottage which took him ages to find because the village doesn't seem to have street numbers just names for the houses! Well it is a village. He's just unloading his car when a neighbour appears and begins a conversation and says he is off down to the pub, fancy coming. He does. Then begins a sort of steady friendship between the two of them. Alan Hargreaves is a writer, he writes children's books and is quite a nice bloke, they do get on and over time their friendship gets stronger. The next day they go into Exeter and Dan fancies a really good fancy coffee and Alan tells him to look for the name of a cafe which does vegan stuff.

I really liked this duo, nothing too fast paced, nothing too horrible just two men about the same age both alone and both intelligent who try to help the cafe owner when her place is burgled overnight and some ancient artifacts have been stolen from her walls. The boys begin a search for these and it involves meeting a titled man who doesn't want them looking into the disappearance of a member of his family straight after the first world war ended and doesn't want them to look into anything to do with his family who live up in the big house at all, now run by the National Trust. Except Alan smells a rat, the clothing on the model in their war museum and the medal attached to the tunic don't match. Alan knows his war material. They embark on doing a lot of searching to actually find an ending which will make the cafe owner happy and also the not so nice aristrocat too.

It was gentle but it was well I was going to say nice but I don't mean that in a twee kind of way, but I can see right now Adrian Scarborough playing Alan Hargreaves, and the gentle police inspector from Sister Boniface investigates or something like that who plays a more robust character playing Dan Corrigan. I can really see it now.......

[E North · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gentle detective story

This was different to the usual detective books I read and I really enjoyed it. Funny to see how the two lead characters bounced off each other but made a great team working together.
No.sex, violence or bad language, just a good read which I finished in one day. Look forward to reading more by this author and learning more about.the lead back stories as one is obvious, the other not so much.

[Garry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable

When I began to read this book I nearly have up a couple of time.but I'm so glad I didnt.it got better and better.good story,good characters .twists an d turns..very enjoyable

[peter hodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

This kept my interest going right until the end.
A must to read and understand feelings about long ago history.