Whatever sights the silent stones of Fountains Abbey had witnessed over the centuries from its creation by the Normans to its ruination by Henry VIII, a butchered corpse was probably not among their number. But when Yorkshire cops Di Leo Donovan and DC Shan Young are called out to the stately ruins one bitter winter night, that is just what they find. Patrick Armitage, college lecturer, his body ravaged by knife wounds, his lips frozen in the rictus of death, had been on site earlier, directing the dress rehearsal of a musical.

Now, with all the actors, singers and technicians long gone, he lies dead, with the arterial spray from his wounds staining one of the ancient pillars of the nave. Donovan and Young are an interesting pair. Donovan, much Young’s senior, is beginning to feel the onset of arthritis, but has other pains, the principle one being that of the shattered relationship with Luke, his son, who is doing prison time for a hate crime, brought to light by his father’s diligence. Young is of Chinese heritage with adoptive parents, and is in a same sex relationship. She and her partner have one failed IVF pregnancy behind them, but they hope for better things.

As is often the way with police procedurals, early suspects seem to be eliminated for one reason or another, and the investigation stalls. Donovan likens the process to one of those fairground grab machines where the prize seems almost in reach before the claws slip and close on thin air. In murder fiction, families are rarely what they seem to be, and so it is here. Armitage’s brother Max is a drunk, obsessed with pursuing an ever-more-elusive fortune by dabbling in crypto currency. And is Bree, Armitage’s wife, the distraught widow she seems to be?

The investigation takes a dramatic turn when a teenage girl, Rosie, one of the stars of the now abandoned musical goes missing. Donovan and Young have discovered that some years earlier, Armitage had been involved, apparently innocently, with a female student, Janelle, who had developed a huge crush on him. Is the disappearance of Rosie history repeating itself? Did the charismatic – and handsome – college lecturer somehow fall foul of yet another teenage obsession?

In some ways, this novel is nothing out of the ordinary in the genre, in that the procedural details are convincing, and the main characters are well drawn. For me, however, the stand-out quality is the vibrancy of the setting; the towering and gaunt majesty of the ruined abbey, the sharp frosts making the tall grasses sparkle on the wintry lanes, and the sheer endurance of the local limestone in the old farms and field walls. Against this backdrop, Cath Staincliff has written a crime novel which involves readers from the very first paragraph and keeps us guessing until the very end.

I don’t use the star system on my site for the reason that it is too blunt a tool, and I prefer to convey my views with more nuance. Commercial sites like Amazon, Netgalley and Goodreads do have the star system, and I generally play safe and award three or four. Here, though, I will be going for five. In addition to the wonderful topographical background, Cath Staincliffe mines deep into human joy and sorrow. Donovan’s heartbreak at the total breakdown of his the relationship with his son, Young’s paralysing anxiety over her own identity and the health of her adoptive father, and the devastating effects of violent crime on families – each is described unflinchingly, but with a huge sense of compassion. Secrets On The Fells is published by Joffe Books and available now.