Stalked by Shadows

Lucy Jarrett is terrified. She s convinced that somebody is watching her, following her home from work and lurking in shadows. But when she looks, there s nobody there. The phone calls are real enough, even if the caller never speaks, although they never seem to happen when her husband is at home. She s struggling to make anybody believe her, but with the recent murder of another young woman, DI Tom Mariner must take Lucy s fears seriously. However, that s not all that DI Mariner has to contend with. His team is stretched to the limits when Nina Silvero, the widow of a former police officer, is found brutally murdered in an attack that could hark back to her husband s past misdemeanours. Someone, it seems, is out for revenge... In Birmingham a local journalist is found dead in his home. A puncture wound in his arm a testimony to his death by lethal injection, the cryptic note by his side: 'no more', seems at first to suggest suicide but Detective Inspector Tom Mariner has learned to take nothing at face value. There is something a little too staged about events, especially as just that evening Mariner had witnessed Edward Barham pick up a prostitute in a bar. As the police investigate the house further, they discovers there is another witness to events at 34 Clarendon Avenue. Barham's younger brother, Jamie, is found in a cupboard under the stairs. It seems likely that Jamie Barham had witnessed his brother's killing but his severe autism has left him without the means to communicate what he has seen Mariner is determined to build enough of a relationship with Jamie to get to the truth. And the fact that this means spending time with Anna Barham, Jamie's new - and reluctant - guardian, is no great hardship. But is Edward's death related to his recent investigations into a local crimelord. Or is there something else, something that only Jamie can tell them - if he so chooses The same evening that DI Tom Mariner notices Edward Barham pick up a prostitute, the journalist dies of a lethal injection in his own home. The only witness to the event is Barham's young autistic brother. Was Barham murdered because of his investigations into a local crime lord, or was it just suicide? A police procedural crime novel based in Birmingham and featuring Detective Inspector Tom Mariner