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THE WARWICKSHIRE TRIPLE MURDER . . . Violent death visits Baddesley Ensor (1)

Asked to name counties associated with England’s coal mining heritage, many people would say, “Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.” The more knowledgeable might add Lancashire and, perhaps, Kent, but few would be aware that until relatively recently there was an important mining industry in North Warwickshire. One of the most significant centres was the village of Baddesley Ensor (below), near Atherstone. Mentioned as ‘Bedeslei’ in the Domesday Book, the village has a long and fascinating history, but the events of a day in late August 1902 are the focus here.

The 1901 census tells us that the Chetwynd family, comprising John (56), wife Eliza (60), Joseph (22) and Eliza (19) lived at 177 Watling Street Road, in what was known as Black Swan Yard. Not far away, on the same road, a young man called George Place, described as a coal hewer, lodged with William Aston and his wife Martha. At some point later that year George Place and the younger Eliza became, as they say, “an item” – to the extent that Eliza became pregnant. On 14th August 1902, Eliza gave birth to a baby boy. Much had happened prior to this. On 19th March John Chetwynd died leaving the two Elizas and the his as-yet-unborn grandson to manage on the income of young Eliza’s brother Joseph Chetwynd who, inevitably, was another coal miner. It seems that George Place had moved in with the family, and had become informally engaged to Eliza, but his contribution to the the family finances must have been minimal, as Eliza had served him with what was known as an Affiliation Summons – a kind of paternity order, what we know as a Child Support maintenance enforcement.

George Place was not a Warwickshire man. He was born in 1874 in Radford, an outer suburb of Nottingham. His was a large family, even by the standards of the day. He was the elder of nine children. In 1891, at the age of 17, he was listed as living at 72 Saville Street, Radford, working as a cotton spinner. Whether he became a miner by choice or through necessity, we will never know, but fate brought him further south into the Warwickshire coalfield.

Having researched and written about many of these historical murder cases, the question of evil versus insanity comes up every time. The central question is simple: Would someone committing a murder in plain sight have to be unhinged to think they could get away with it? Another question: Can insanity be temporary, so that when a murderer is apprehended, he/she may seem perfectly sane? These days, of course, the distinction is largely irrelevant, as no murderer will lose their life as a result of a guilty verdict; the only variable is the kind of institution in which they will serve their sentence. What follows in this story will explain why I have raised the philosophical question.

As is often the case, there is a back story here, and the Nuneaton Observer (left) made much of the troubled relationship between George Place and the Chetwynd family.

Quite why George Place felt so aggrieved at being asked to contribute to the upbringing of the little boy he had fathered we shall never know. When the summons making him responsible for his eleven day old son was served on Place, he threatened that all the Chetwynds would get out of him would be a bullet. This sounds like empty rhetoric, uttered for dramatic effect, but what followed was truly horrific

IN PART TWO

Three bullets. Three lives
A date with the hangman

July 30, 2022 0

THE GHOSTS OF PARIS . . . Between the covers

It is 1947, and in Europe both victors and vanquished struggle to rebuild shattered lives, towns, cities and democracy itself. Although nearly 30,000 Australian servicemen lost their lives, their homeland remained physically untouched. Former war reporter Billie Walker has set up as a private investigator in Sydney and, with her assistant Sam, is making a decent go of things, but their cases are very parochial and largely mundane. Then everything changes. She accepts a case to investigate the disappearance of Richard Montgomery, last heard of in London, and possibly Paris.

This book is full of interesting historical detail, some of which was new to me. For example, I never knew that flights between Australia and Britain at the time were often made in hastily converted Lancaster bombers, renamed ‘Lancastrians’. Billie and Sam, aboard one of these lumbering giants, take three days to reach London, and when their hearing and sleep patterns have returned to normal, they begin their investigation.

It soon becomes clear that the Richard Montgomery’s London trail has gone cold, and so the pair move to Paris where, from their luxurious HQ of the Paris Ritz they start to make enquiries. At this point, some of the back-story needs telling. Billie Walker was once married to Jack Rake, another war reporter and photographer, but in the vicious chaos that was wartime Central Europe, they became separated. Jack was last heard of in Poland but Billie has had no communication of any kind from him since then, and she fears he is dead. Back in Australia, on an earlier investigation, Billie had accidentally uncovered part of the ODESSA network. This had nothing to do with the Black Sea port, but was an acronym for Organisation Der Ehemaligen Ss-angehörigen, a highly secret group dedicated to smuggling as many former SS men out from under the noses of the Allies as possible. The encounter pitted Billie against one of the most vicious former Nazis in the organisation. She brought about his downfall, but ODESSA have neither forgotten nor forgiven.

Billie Walker is an admirably resilient and resourceful investigator, and Tara Moss tells a tale that gallops along at a cracking pace, and includes a very cinematic scene where Billie fights for her life on very rickety scaffolding high up on the wall of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, with Le Stryge (above) gazing impassively at the struggle. The Ghosts of Paris is published by Dutton (an imprint of the Penguin Group) and is available now.

Author Tara Moss (right) has a pretty impressive CV. She holds joint citizenship of Canada and Australia, and is an international advocate for human rights, particularly those of women and children. She is renowned for researching the physical action in her novels, and this has included shooting firearms, being set on fire, being choked unconscious by Ultimate Fighter ‘Big’ John McCarthy, flying with the Royal Australian Air Force, spending time in morgues and courtrooms and obtaining a licence as a private investigator. She has also been a race car driver (CAMS), and holds a motorcycle licence and a wildlife/snake-handling licence.

July 27, 2022 0

THE MURDER OF JANICE ANN HOLMES . . . Lincolnshire, April 1959 (part two)

SO FAR: Binbrook, Lincolnshire, April 1959. On the night of 12th April, 12 year-old Janice Holmes has gone missing from her home near Hall Farm, an isolated group of buildings two miles east of the village. The police are now involved, and Janice’s hat has been found, but a more terrible discovery is imminent.

At around 2.00am on the morning of 13th April, the searchers discover Janice’s body in a spinney just off Lambscroft Lane. The grim facts were reported to the subsequent Coroner’s inquest:

“A hundred yards away from the hat.” said Mr. Hutchison. “they found the body of the dead child. It was just inside the wood. The right arm was above the head. A shoe was missing and she was lying in undergrowth.” Janice’s clothing was disarranged. Death was due to asphyxia. caused by strangulation with some thin ligature and there had been some violation of her sexual parts. There were numerous bruises on the child.”

Enter, stage left – as they say – William Thomas Francis Jenkin. He was born in Cornwall in 1934, had married Hilda M Louis in Basford, Notts, in 1955. At the time of this story, they had two children, and a third was on the way, due in October. A later newspaper report suggested that he had served with British Forces in Cyprus.§

§The Greek Cypriot War of Independence was a conflict fought in British Cyprus between November 1955 and March 1959.

Tom Jenkin and his family had only arrived at Hall Farm relatively recently, in March of that year, but it seems he had already struck up a friendship with Janice Holmes. Janice, when not at school, often went to help her mother in the fields, and met Jenkin on several occasions. He had (not a euphemism) shown her his stamp albums, and had also promised to collect some frogspawn for her from a nearby pond so that she could watch the tadpoles develop.

It appeared that Jenkin had been out and about on his bike at the time Janice disappeared. There was to be a hint that Ada, Janice’s mother, had a feeling that something was not quite right about Jenkin, as it was later reported in court that during the search, she said to Jenkin, “What have you done with Janice ? ” He replied : “There’s other folks in the place besides me.”

By mid morning on 13th April, police had begun to issue requests to all cafés and public places in the area to be on the look-out for bloodstained clothing, and officers were at the Louth RDC refuse depot checking the contents of vehicles as they were unloaded. Meanwhile, the national press had taken up the story of Janice’s murder.

The only suspect the police had was Jenkin, and the evidence against him was circumstantial. Yes he had been out and about on his bike, but no-one had seen him. But then, a key piece of evidence broke the case wide open, at least as far as the police were concerned. A tobacco tin belonging to Jenkin was found near the murder site. He admitted that it was his, but had no explanation as to why it was found where it was.

At 3.30pm on Thursday 16th April, Supt. Anthony Tew, head of Cleethorpes police, formally charged Jenkin with the murder of Janice Holmes. He was arrested and taken into custody.

Janice was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Binbrook, on the afternoon of Friday 17th April. A little later, William Thomas Francis Jenkin appeared in front of the magistrates at Market Rasen, just seven miles or so down the road from Binbrook. What followed makes it clear that the police were struggling to find any forensic connection between Jenkin and Janice. Yes, they had discovered tiny spots of blood on the man’s clothing, but the forensic technology at the time was nothing as precise as it is today, and no definite link could be proved. Jenkin was remanded several times at market Rasen, with no new evidence appearing. On Jenkin’s final appearance at Market Rasen on Thursday 14th May, his solicitor, Mr Skinner said:

“The bicycle ride suggested opportunity, but the mere fact that Jenkin was out alone is not evidence against him. There were probably ten other people about at the time. End this now. This man’s anxiety should be ended now rather than later.”

Unfortunately for Jenkin, the magistrates did not agree, and he was further remanded to appear at Nottingham Assizes in June. I can find no explanation as to why the trial was sent to Nottingham, other than that the final magistrate hearing was too close to the opening date of the Lincoln Assizes, which seems to have been at the very beginning of June.

Jenkin appeared before Mr Justice Havers on 23rd June, but the next day, the police attempts to find justice for Janice were dealt a further blow.

The ‘show’ moved on to Birmingham, and on 14th July the same evidence was presented, with the same witnesses, but in front of a different judge and jury. The case for the defence was much the same, and it rested on the tobacco tin which, they said, could have been picked up by a third party and placed near the murder site. Neither judge nor jury were having any of this, and Jenkin was found guilty. I am certain that he avoided the death penalty because the case against him was anything but cast iron. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Hilda Jenkin (25) who gave evidence for her husband, collapsed when he was found guilty. She said afterwards: “I will wait for him. I know he could not have done it”

It has to be said that there were two other theories about Janice’s death in circulation at the time. One involved a mysterious stranger in a large car who had been seen around the village, and the other – possibly connected – was that the intended victim was Janice’s friend, Susan.

We next hear of William Thomas Francis Jenkin in 1998. He was released from prison in 1975 having served just sixteen years, but In April 1998, aged 64, he was living back in Cornwall, and while the police were investigating him for another offence, they found an air rifle in his wardrobe. This was in breach of his parole conditions imposed for another offence, apparently, in 1980. Unable to pay the fine, he was remanded in custody and brought up before the judge at Truro Crown Court in October of that year. The judge ordered the weapon to be destroyed and gave Jenkin a conditional discharge for eighteen months.

Did Jenkin kill Janice Holmes? 63 years later, the only thing that is certain is that we will never know. All we can hope, if we believe in such things, is that Janice sleeps with the angels.

FOR MORE LINCOLNSHIRE TRUE CRIMES FROM THE PAST, CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW

July 23, 2022 0

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS . . . Lewis, Parry, Walls & Wilson

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THE SILENT OATH by Michael J Lewis

The Silent Oath is the fourth in The Oath series that depicts life at Blackleigh Public School in the 1950s. Jonathan Simon, 17, is in his fourth year at Blackleigh, but he is self-conscious about his appointment as one of five Prefects in Trafalgar House. Jonathan knows:
(1) The school code of conduct mandates no snitching on anyone.
(2) The student Prefects have absolute power to discipline.
(3) Mr. Phillip Temple the new Headmaster is determined to revise the school admission policy to achieve a more even playing field in education.
The pressure mounts during a school trip to Paris as the school’s Board of Governors as they oppose the new Head. They will stop at nothing to get their way. In his effort to strive to support the Headmaster’s goals, Jonathan will have to overcome far more than an oath of silence executed by his enemies to prevail. This was published by The Book Guild on 7th June.

A CORRUPTION OF BLOOD by Ambrose Parry

Ambrose Parry is the pen name of husband and wife writing team Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. Their series of historical crime novels set in 1850s Edinburgh featuring Dr Will Raven and Sarah Fisher began with The Art of Dying. Next came The Way of All Flesh, and this is the paperback version of the third in the series. A package containing human remains is washed up on the shores of Leith, and Raven is dragged into the darker reaches of the city’s underworld. Meanwhile, his former lover Sarah Fisher is trying to make her way in the world of medicine against the determined prejudice of the establishment. This is published by Canongate Books and will be available on 4th August. For a full review of the novel, click this link.

IGOR AND THE TWISTED TALES OF CASTLEMAINE by Ian J Walls & Richard L Markworth

Not my usual fare, this, but here goes. Following decades of torture at the hands of his cruel master Victor Frankenstein, the once-downtrodden and pathetic Igor finally rises up and walks out on Victor, in the hope of finding a fulfilling life-less-ordinary elsewhere. Instead, something wicked his way came, and Igor finds his way to Castlemaine, an accursed village nestled deep in the Carpathian Mountains, where terrors stalk the waking world and ale is more expensive than in London. Published by Matador, this is available now.

FERAL by Glenis Wilson

When a storm causes a low-flying Cessna to crash in the woods on his sheep farm, it proves a catalyst for Kent Evans and his little daughter, Rachel. Their lives become entangled with three other people: Phillip Lemmingham, air traffic controller, Anan Isooba, the Cessna pilot and Mr Smith, owner of Wild Ark Zoo (and drug dealer). The pilot is trapped in the wreckage and one piece of cargo, a crate carrying an illegally imported black panther, smashes open. The panther escapes. Desperate to save his business, Mr Smith is determined to track down and recapture the panther while also recovering the second secret part of the cargo; a consignment of cocaine. Meanwhile the pilot, unable to move, remains an easy meal for a prowling hungry panther. From The Book Guild, this was published on 7th June.

July 22, 2022 0

THE MURDER OF JANICE ANN HOLMES . . . Lincolnshire, April 1959 (part one)

The Lincolnshire village of Binbrook was once the size of a small market town. It encompassed the lost medieval village of Orford and, more recently, RAF Binbrook which opened in 1940 as a Bomber Command base, and continued as an active airfield until it finally closed in the 1980s, although the runways were maintained as a relief landing strip for RAF Scampton until the 1990s. The buildings that remain are now used commercially, but the former housing stock now makes up the village of Brookenby.

In April 1959, Janice Ann Holmes was twelve years-old, and lived with her mother Ada in one of a number of farm cottages at Hall Farm, about two miles east of the village. Mrs Holmes acted as housekeeper to one of the workers, a Mr Barley. Her husband James was separated from the family and lived in Leicester. Janice Holmes was a bright girl, and had taken her Eleven Plus exam the previous year at Binbrook Primary School (above). She won a scholarship to Cleethorpes Grammar School. Each school day, she cycled into Binbrook to catch the school bus, and did the journey in reverse in the afternoon. Although just two miles from the village, the area around Hall Farm is lonely and, at the wrong time of day or in the wrong weather, desolate.

On the evening of Monday 13th April, Janice had come home from school as usual, helped her mother for a while, and then gone home to make the tea. Close by the cottage where Janice and her mother lived was another house where Susan Baker lived. Susan was fifteen, had already left school, and was working as a domestic servant for Mr Allbones, the tenant of Home Farm. She came round to Janice’s house at 6.15pm, and the two girls watched television for a while, before going out for a walk. They returned at about 7.15pm, and watched some more TV. Susan decided to go home, and Janice said she would go part of the way with her. When they reached Susan’s gate, they said goodbye, and Susan later testified that she heard the sound of Janice’s footsteps as she ran back to her own house. She never arrived. Bear in mind the Hall Farm area was not a well-lit modern housing estate. The cottages were scattered over a significant area, and deep into an April evening it would have been dark.

Initially, Ada Holmes was not too concerned about Janice’s absence, but when 9.00pm became 9.30pm, she had a sense that something was not right. She went to the nearby cottages, but no-one had seen her daughter. Mr Allbones, the farmer, organised a search party with torches, but at 11.00pm, still with no sign of Janice, he informed the police. Eventually, at 2.00am on the Tuesday morning, just off the narrow road known as Lambcroft Lane, the searchers found Janice’s hat. Much worse was to follow.

IN PART TWO
A grim discovery
A suspect|
A trial

July 21, 2022 3

LIGHTS DOWN . . . Between the covers

For those new to this wonderful series, here’s the back story. Enora Andressen is an actress in her early forties. She has won fame, if not fortune, by starring in what used to be known as ‘art films’ – often European produced and of a literary nature. She has a twenty-something son, Malo, the product of a one-night-fling with a former drug boss, Harold ‘H’ Prentice. ‘H’ and Enora have become reunited, after a fashion, but it is not a sexual relationship. In the previous novel, ‘H’ is stricken with Covid, and barely survives. That story is told in Intermission.

Taking an extended break from her nursing of ‘H’ down at Flixcombe, his manor house in the south of England, Enora returns to her London flat. She is contacted by Rémy Despret, a film director with whom she has worked many times. He is a charming as ever, but seems to have lost his touch regarding viable screenplays. He pitches his latest – Exocet – to Enora, but she thinks it is rubbish, and turns him down. She also suspects he is using his yacht to smuggle drugs, and may be in serious trouble with some very dangerous people. She also meets her agent, Rosa, who tells her she is representing a woman who has written a potentially explosive – because real identities are thinly concealed – novel about the extra marital affairs of a senior politician.

Enora receives a chilling ‘phone call from the woman who is in charge of things at Flixcombe. Not only is ‘H’ suffering physically from Long Covid, it seems he has developed dementia. When Enora drives down to see for herself, she is staggered to find that ‘H’ has no idea who she is. In the previous books, ‘H’ has been a force of nature. Physically imposing and nobody’s fool, the former football hooligan, has to borrow from Shakespeare, been a criminal Caesar:

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men.
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

Now, sadly, he is much reduced physically and mentally and is given to such bizarre behaviour as appearing naked at windows. Also, his money is running out. Huge sums of it went on private nursing care during his battle with Covid, as he absolutely refused to go into an NHS hospital. Incidentally, readers will always conjure up their own mental images of the characters in books they read, but I occasionally play the game of casting books ready for imaginary film or TV adaptations. My four penn’orth has a young Anne Bancroft as Enora, and Bob Hoskins as ‘H’.

With the help of long time friend and former copper Dessie Wren Enora discovers that the ‘bonking politician’ novel has more sinister undertones than being simply a kiss-and-tell story. Graham Hurley makes it convincingly up to date with the inclusion of the Russian state-backed mafia and PM Boris Johnson, although with the latter, the story has been overtaken by events.

Undaunted by Enora’s rejection of Exocet, Rémy Despret has come up with an idea which she finds much more interesting. Evidently Flixcombe was used during WW2 as base for Free French intelligence agents and propagandists and the ‘Vlixcombe‘ movie has already attracted backers with the big money. If the project comes off, there will be a starring role for Enora, and enough money to keep at bay the predators circling the ailing ‘H’ Prentice. But then there is a murder, things begin to unravel, and Graham Hurley writes the most astonishing ending I have read in many a day.

I make no apology for my enthusiasm for Graham Hurley’s writing. Not only was his Joe Faraday series one of the most intelligent and emotionally literate run of police procedurals I have ever read, but the sequels featuring Faraday’s former sergeant Jimmy Suttle were just as good. Hurley is also a brilliant military historian, and has written several novels centred around particular conflicts in WW2. His book Kyiv seems particularly relevant just now, and if you read it, it will give you a huge insight into the subtext of the Ukraine-Russia relationship which is barely mentioned in current news coverage.

Lights Down is published by Severn House and is available now. If you click on the cover images above, a review of each novel should open in a new tab.

July 12, 2022 1

NOBODY’S AGENT . . . Between the covers

Central character Ronin Nash is a Scot who found himself in America, did a spell in the armed forces, and then worked as an FBI agent. When he is sidelined as a scapegoat in a kidnap case which went tragically wrong, he retreats to a lakeside log cabin hideaway, but is recruited by his former boss to join a new outfit, the Inter-agency Investigation Bureau. He is sent to the small town of Finchley in upstate New York to find out the investigate the discovery of three dead bodies in an abandoned mine just outside the town.

I did wonder about the wisdom of a British writer setting a novel in America. Of course, James Dover Grant (aka Lee Child) made a pretty good job of it, as did John Connolly (although he’s Irish, of course) with his Charlie Parker books. Stuart Field does pretty well at creating an authentic small town America backdrop, to be fair, and the only distractions were some odd typos which should have been spotted by the editor.

The ‘small town, big secrets’ trope has been a staple of crime fiction and movies for a long time, perhaps never better than in Bad Day at Black Rock, the superb 1955 film based on the short story “Bad Time at Honda” by Howard Breslin, but how does Nobody’s Agent match up? Very creditably, in my view. Stuart Field handles the stock characters – the town gossip, the flawed Sheriff, the maverick investigator and the suspicious townsfolk – with flair and confidence.

We learn pretty quickly that something is not quite right in Finchley, but Nash spots this, and realises he is being played. He is smart enough to let the players assume he is ignorant of what is going on and the only question in his mind is just how many of the Sheriff’s Department – and other significant townsfolk – are in on the secret.

Stuart Field (right) is a British Army veteran who now works in security after serving twenty-two years in the British Army. As well as working full time he writes in his spare time. Stuart was born and raised in the West Midlands in the UK. His love for travel has been an inspiration in some of his work with his John Steel and Ronin Nash thriller series. As well as future John Steel novels, Stuart is working on a new series and standalone novels. Nobody’s Agent is published by Next Chapter, and is available now.

July 10, 2022 1

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS . . . Lisa Jewell & Andrea Mara

Two examples here of what readers seem to be lapping up at the moment – domestic noir. Definition? Not exclusive or definitive, but these stories regularly feature ostensibly happy and successful families where, very often, a woman in the family is not all she seems to be, or has a dark secret. The background is often well-to-do suburbia, or perhaps the potent recipe for gossip and malice which exists at the school gate where mums meet twice a day engaged on the school run.

THE FAMILY REMAINS by Lisa Jewell

Domestic noir is often notable for the fact that police investigations only play a tiny part in the plots, with the author concentrating mainly on the nasty things that people who live on bland suburban estates do to each other. The latest novel from Lisa Jewell (left) is different, in that one of the central characters is London copper DCI Samuel Owusu, who takes charge of an investigation prompted by the discovery of a bag on human bones washed up on the Thames mud.

Owusu’s investigations lead to a trail of clues, in particular the seeds of a rare tree which lead DCI Owusu back to a mansion in Chelsea where, nearly thirty years previously, three people lay dead in a kitchen, and a baby waited upstairs for someone to pick her up. The Family Remains will be published by Century on 21st July.

HIDE AND SEEK by Andrea Mara

Ask any book reviewer with children – or grandchildren – what is the most painful crime plot they have to read and, if they are anything like me, they will say the trope of missing (presumed murdered) children. Still, it happens all too often in real life, and so it remains a legitimate subject for crime fiction. Dublin writer Andrea Mara (right) takes a stab at this most difficult of subjects in Hide and Seek.

A game of hide and seek has gone tragically wrong, and little Lily Murphy has done the ‘hide’ bit, but the ‘seek’ part is beyond the police and her distraught parents.She cannot be found. Years later, Joanna moves into what was the Murphy family home. What follows is an unsettling chain of apparent coincidences which not only threaten to unravel the mystery of Lily’s disappearance, but cast a shadow over Joanna’s sanity. Hide and Seek will be published by Bantam Press on 4th August.

July 4, 2022 0

THE APARTMENT UPSTAIRS . . . Between the covers

Author Lesley Kara returns to the world she excels in describing – the apparently mundane suburban milieu where the streets and houses serve as a stage where families and friends act out a drama riddled with lies, secrets and deception.

Scarlett Quilter, a forty-something accountant, lives in the ground floor apartment of a suburban London house. She has a debilitating illness but is able to work from home. The titular ‘apartment upstairs’ was once occupied by her aunt, Rebecca, a former school teacher. Rebecca made a wrong romantic choice late in life by forming a relationship with a man called Clive Hamlin. Hamlin murdered Rebecca, and then committed suicide, so we know from the start that the apartment upstairs has deeply sinister connotations for Scarlett, as well as for her younger brother Ollie (who has inherited the house) and her father, Peter.

The Quilters have entrusted Rebecca’s funeral arrangements with a firm called Fond Farewells, which is run by Dee Boswell and her business partner Lindsay. Dee and Lindsay had a shared friend called Gina Caplin, who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier, and they have both supported a campaign to find out the truth about what happened to their friend.

All is not sweetness and light between Dee and Lindsay. Lindsay has abused the trust placed in her by the friend of a dead man – think treasured possessions and eBay. She is caught out but manages to placate the grieving customer in a way which leaves Dee fuming. The contrast between the two women is cleverly drawn. Lindsay is more confident, perhaps even reckless and, in contrast to Dee, is knowingly certain of her sexuality.

When Scarlett discovers that her late aunt was connected to the missing girl, Gina, things start to get interesting. Lesley Kara lays a trail of particularly juicy red herrings which include the possibility that the truth about Gina’s disappearance might lie very close to Scarlett’s home, in a ‘Fred West patio’ kind of way.

Lesley Kara always enjoys directing her readers up the proverbial garden path in terms of plot, and here she serves up a couple of turns which are more like double somersaults than twists. The clues are there for more suspicious readers, but they are far from obvious.

The Apartment Upstairs is a dark journey into a world where a violation of trust is made even worse because it is happening between close friends and family members. It is published by Bantam Press and is available now. For more on Lesley Kara, click on the image (below)