Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Rosemary Sherwood overheads a phone conversation between her husband Harry and an associate that contains a dark secret. One that will end her marriage, split up her family and send her into hiding.
Years later with Harry dead, Rosemary returns to England to attempt a reconciliation with her estranged son. Old sins may still cast long shadows, and some will go to any lengths to ensure their crimes stay concealed.
Michael Pakenham takes a story of sexual exploitation and the networks that support [and grow it like diseased vines], locating it within a historical and cosy-crime backdrop. In the process, the author plays a neat riff on the old Sherlock Holmes line about ‘the countryside hiding more dark deeds than the meanest London alley’.
He combines a plot that races along at a breakneck pace with a real awareness of how getting away with a crime isn’t the same thing as dodging guilt. The latter has a habit of following his characters tracks, however well they think they’ve covered them over.
In Daniel Appleman he has created that rarest of things an ex-cop turned private detective with a happy family life. An upstanding hero who does the right thing, even when it is also the most difficult one; placing into the context and tradition of the British golden age mystery.
This is the second outing for Appleman, hopefully it will not be the last.
