Ash & Bone (Thorndike Reviewers' Choice)

Detective Sergeant Maddy Birch will never see thirty again. Nor forty. And, after a lifetime on the force, all she has to show for it are a couple of hundred pounds in the bank and a mortgaged flat.

In Cornwall, retired Detective Inspector Elder’s solitary life is disturbed by a phone call from his estranged wife. Seventeen-year-old Katherine is running wild. Elder’s fears for his daughter are underscored by remorse and guilt, for it was his involvement that led directly to the abduction and rape that has so unbalanced Katherine’s life.

There’s a connection between Maddy and Elder: a brief, clumsy encounter sixteen years earlier. Just a quick grope and a cuddle, leading to nothing, but leaving a trace of lingering regret.

When the takedown of a violent criminal goes badly wrong leaving both the target and a young constable dead, something doesn’t feel right to Maddy. In Ash and Bone, the unsettled, unhappy Elder is once again persuaded out of retirement. A cold, cold case has a devastating present day impact with sinister implications for the crime squad itself. Elder’s investigation takes place against the backdrop of his increasing concern for his daughter together with demons of his own he must battle before he can uncover the truth.