Grave Secrets

Detective Superintendent Mark Pemberton #2

by Peter N. Walker

Louisa Mary Potter, the century's most notorious child killer, has been granted parole after twenty-five years. A convert to Catholicism and considered to be a reformed character, this living argument for the retention of the death penalty is in urgent need of protection. Someone wants to kill Potter when she is released, someone who knows that she is about to leave prison. In charge of her safety is Detective Superintendent Mark Pemberton. A widower workaholic, revolted by his new assignment, he is nevertheless determined both to protect Potter and also to return her to gaol by re-opening the case of three missing girls she supposedly murdered, but whose bodies have never been found.

During enquiries into the past activities of Britain's most evil woman, Pemberton discovers that Potter's Irish boyfriend, Joseph Patrick Balleen, has vanished and that a hidden fortune awaits her release. So where is Baleen now? Is he waiting to gain revenge and at the same time acquire that fortune? And what is the secret held by a quiet nun, the only survivor of a schoolgirl society called the Secret Seven? The other six were all murdered by Louisa Mary Potter.

This is a police thriller of extraordinary compulsion on a subject not so deeply buried in the public's consciousness.

191 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Peter Norman Walker was a former policeman. He was born in Glaisdale, North Yorkshire.He also writes under the pseudonyms 'Andrew Arncliffe', 'Christopher Coram', 'Tom Ferris', 'James Ferguson' and 'Nicholas Rhea'.