What do you think?
Rate this book
DI Pen Darling #3
Murder in Hexham
A retirement plan gone wrong.
Lawrence Mains is rich — and ready to vanish. The property tycoon has his retirement planned out and it means leaving the country.
But days before he plans to disappear, he’s found dead in a remote Northumberland forest, his body blown apart by a shotgun.
DI Pen Darling quickly finds that Mains had plenty of enemies, with no shortage of motives. His retirement plan rested on cutting his business partners out of lucrative deals and the only relationship he had with his sons was when they needed money.
And his estranged wife stands to inherit everything . . .
Pen knows that someone in this tangle of enemies, lovers and family was desperate enough to kill.
And Lawence Mains might just be their first victim.
Lawrence Mains is rich — and ready to vanish. The property tycoon has his retirement planned out and it means leaving the country.
But days before he plans to disappear, he’s found dead in a remote Northumberland forest, his body blown apart by a shotgun.
DI Pen Darling quickly finds that Mains had plenty of enemies, with no shortage of motives. His retirement plan rested on cutting his business partners out of lucrative deals and the only relationship he had with his sons was when they needed money.
And his estranged wife stands to inherit everything . . .
Pen knows that someone in this tangle of enemies, lovers and family was desperate enough to kill.
And Lawence Mains might just be their first victim.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 13, 2025
64 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 27, 2025
Am struggling with this, trying to remember the plot it was a while ago since I finished reading this! Lawrie Mains was a millionaire with a divorced wife and two sons, one of whom Edgar was in the army as a tank commander and had a row with his wife and hit her and left on his motorbike. She had discovered that he had spent their savings and gambled all the money they had and they were now bankrupt. Luckily they lived in army accommodation but she was left with no money to buy food for their baby daughter.
He left the house and headed to his younger brother William who was not best pleased to see him and said if he was looking for money from their father well good luck. Eddie (Edgar) did arrive at his dad's place and was admitted but he threw him out, he was not going to help him at all with his gambling and lack of money, it was all his own fault. Eddie left in a very angry mood, and then his father was found dead.
This is a very good plot and it did have an unhappy ending which I didn't see coming, the plot got more complicated as it rolled along but it was a sound story and well worth 5 stars.
He left the house and headed to his younger brother William who was not best pleased to see him and said if he was looking for money from their father well good luck. Eddie (Edgar) did arrive at his dad's place and was admitted but he threw him out, he was not going to help him at all with his gambling and lack of money, it was all his own fault. Eddie left in a very angry mood, and then his father was found dead.
This is a very good plot and it did have an unhappy ending which I didn't see coming, the plot got more complicated as it rolled along but it was a sound story and well worth 5 stars.
Displaying 1 of 1 review