When Sukey Reynolds, Scenes of Crime Officer attached to the Gloucester Constabulary, is called to the death of a man found at the foot of a wrought-iron staircase, it look pretty straightforward. Arthur Soames is lying at the foot of his garden staircase surrounded by broken crockery , with a broken neck pointing to accidental death.
But his estranged daughter Sabrina insists that he was murdered. Rather surprisingly, as they are extremely hostile to each other, Arthur’s fiancee Elspeth Maddox expresses the same observation. But each blames the other. Sabrina is keen for Sukey to help her prove her father was murdered, but Sukey is reluctant to become involved. and merely suggests that in order to get the police to take her seriously, Sabrina needs to find some evidence to support her claim. Then Sabrina disappears. So Sukey picks up the trail where Sabrina was last seen - interviewing someone at the school at which her father last taught. Could there be something in his past for which someone wanted to kill him?
I have read several of the Melissa Craig books but this was my first Sukey
Reynolds mystery. I really enjoyed it .
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Lizzie Hayes