In the Lake District National Park, where unprecedented drought has exposed the ruins of Mardale Green—a village submerged since 1935—Detective Inspector Tobias Stone discovers human remains on the floor of the old village smithy.
What begins as a puzzling cold case evolves into something far more complex, revealing connections between a missing librarian from 1972 and celebrated local author Victor Matheson's literary career. When forensic evidence suggests deliberate murder and concealment, Stone must navigate both a half-century evidence trail and the treacherous intersection of historical truth and literary fabrication.
As the investigation intensifies, Stone uncovers links between Elaine Carlton's historical research and Matheson's fraudulent family connection to Mardale Green. With rising reservoir waters threatening to reclaim the crime scene, each revelation tests Stone's investigative abilities and puts his understanding of rural policing to the ultimate test.
The vast Cumbrian landscape conceals motives where literary success and historical accuracy stand in deadly opposition. But in a place where water preserves what earth might reveal, some secrets refuse to remain submerged.
Stone must rely on both forensic evidence and literary analysis to read the signs before rising waters erase them forever, all while confronting a killer who transformed murder into art and built a celebrated career on the silence of his victim.
In this atmospheric rural mystery, justice may arrive fifty years late, but it arrives nonetheless.
Genre: Mystery
What begins as a puzzling cold case evolves into something far more complex, revealing connections between a missing librarian from 1972 and celebrated local author Victor Matheson's literary career. When forensic evidence suggests deliberate murder and concealment, Stone must navigate both a half-century evidence trail and the treacherous intersection of historical truth and literary fabrication.
As the investigation intensifies, Stone uncovers links between Elaine Carlton's historical research and Matheson's fraudulent family connection to Mardale Green. With rising reservoir waters threatening to reclaim the crime scene, each revelation tests Stone's investigative abilities and puts his understanding of rural policing to the ultimate test.
The vast Cumbrian landscape conceals motives where literary success and historical accuracy stand in deadly opposition. But in a place where water preserves what earth might reveal, some secrets refuse to remain submerged.
Stone must rely on both forensic evidence and literary analysis to read the signs before rising waters erase them forever, all while confronting a killer who transformed murder into art and built a celebrated career on the silence of his victim.
In this atmospheric rural mystery, justice may arrive fifty years late, but it arrives nonetheless.
Genre: Mystery
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