Deadly Thaw, Inspector Francis Sadler

DC Childs investigates when a convicted murderer’s victim is found recently dead almost two decades later in this mystery.

Lena Grey is found guilty of murdering her husband, who was found smothered in their bed. She offers no defense and serves fourteen long years in prison. But within months of her release nearly two decades later, his body is found in a disused morgue, recently killed. Who was the man she killed before, and why did she lie about his identity?

Detective Inspector Francis Sadler and his Derbyshire team try to discover how such a well-orchestrated deception could have occurred. DC Connie Childs is convinced that something greater than marital strife caused the murders, but before Lena can be questioned further, she vanishes. Back in Lena’s childhood home, her sister Kat, a therapist, is shocked by her sister’s duplicity. When she begins to receive mysterious packages from a young man claiming to know her sister’s location, Kat is drawn into her own investigation of her family’s well-hidden secrets. As her inquiries begin to collide with the murder investigation, a link to the sisters’ teenage lives emerges, and the line between victim and perpetrator becomes blurred in this tightly plotted, compelling novel perfect for fans of Deborah Crombie and Sharon Bolton.

“An excellent police procedural that shows how psychological damage from the past casts shadows over the present.” —Kirkus Reviews