A Moving Death

Inspector Leonard Cassar may have the best 'solved' rate in the Malta Police Force but, for once, he is well and truly baffled. And this time, he's worried that he may have to stay baffled. Having been missing for weeks, in circumstances that gave rise to grave concern, one of the Malta's leading businesswomen has turned up in Buskett Gardens. Dead. In fact, very dead. From the post mortem it looks like she's been dead for much of that time, so where has her body been until now? The one thing Cassar knows for certain is that she has not been lying there long; it's just a few days past Mnarja and someone in the crowds gathered in Buskett for the annual festival would surely have found her. So who would have moved her body? And why? Then the leads start to trickle in and it soon begins to look like Natalie Collingswood had been piling up enemies for herself by her single-mindedly ruthless approach to business. And not just that: her distant past hasn't been squeaky clean, either. In fact, it's been anything but. But Cassar's case still doesn't look any more hopeful: the number one suspect, who had actually, publicly, threatened to kill her, has an airtight alibi for the day she went missing; even when it is discovered that her body had lain for days in an abandoned property he owns, Cassar is still not convinced - no one, he reckons, could be that stupid... And, as if things aren't bad enough, some of his squad - who should be giving the case their fullest attention - have become distracted by a sudden, nationwide outbreak of poisonings. When reasonable pleas to the better natures of the owners of noisy dogs have not only failed but been met with outright hostility; when complaints to the police have not resulted in the silencing of yappers and yippers, howlers and growlers, a few enterprising locals have begun to offer their services as doggy hit men... Anything can happen on Malta.


Genre: Mystery