Up in Flames (28 page)

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‘The original crossroads used to run by here,’ Sam told Rafferty. ‘Legend has it that this was the old Hanging Tree.’

When Inspector Rafferty first hears the report that a bound and hooded body has been seen hanging from a tree in Dedman Wood, he dismisses it as a schoolboy hoax, especially when police at the scene find nothing out of the ordinary.

But his anxiety rises sharply when the witness turns out to be a respectable local magistrate, who identifies the corpse as Maurice Smith, a man once accused of four child rapes. Thrown out on a legal technicality, Smith’s case had become a cause-celebre which had generated much ill-feeling within the community.

Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn visit Smith’s home – to discover he has mysteriously disappeared. And in his flat they find a threatening letter, and fresh bloodstains…

Then the body turns up again in the woods. Could there be a self-appointed executioner at work, meting out his own form of justice on the legendary Hanging Tree?

Absolute Poison #5

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Detective Inspector Joseph Rafferty is having a bad week–two pensioner suicides already and he can’t help feeling trouble comes in threes. Also niggling in his mind is the fact that Llewellyn, his posh sergeant, has bought a ‘bargain’ suit from Rafferty’s mother. Sure to be stolen goods, the suit is bound to drop Rafferty in it when the holier-than-thou Llewellyn wears it on his wedding day, with the promise of a gimlet-eyed Superintendent Bradley in attendance..

Rafferty’s first premonition turns out to be accurate when a company manager is found dead at his desk. The tyrannical Barstaple had known full well that he was hated by most of the office. But did he really deserve  to be poisoned?

Rafferty thinks his week has been  trying enough. But then someone else is poisoned and from bad to worse becomes worse again. And when you take the ‘bargain’ suit into the equation, the week really has gone to Hell in a handcart. And taken Rafferty with it.

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Increasingly conscious of his lonely state, Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty signed up with the Made in Heaven dating agency, using an assumed name so his Ma and his colleagues wouldn’t find out. What he hadn’t bargained on was that the first two women with whom he struck up a rapport should wind up murdered–and with himself, or rather his alter ego, Nigel Blythe, in the frame for the crime.

Will the cunning disguise he has found it necessary to adopt be enough to carry him through the investigation? And will the extra time he’s bought prove sufficient to find the women’s real killer before the finger of suspicion is pointed at him?

Bad Blood #7

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Investigating the murder of wealthy widow Clara Mortimer, estranged from her family and living alone in an upmarket sheltered apartment, Rafferty  fears his own family estrangement. Because when Abra, his girlfriend, said she might be pregnant, his reaction wasn’t exactly New Man…

Between the grudges of Clara’s estranged family and those of her adoptive ‘family’–the other apartment residents–Rafferty has suspects and questions in plenty. Why had the sensible Clara Mortimer chosen to open her door to a burglar, for instance? When he considers the awful lies her family tells, how can he not conclude they have something to hide?

Love Lies Bleeding #8

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When the delicate Felicity Raine, covered in blood, staggers into Elmhurst's police station, and confesses to murdering her husband before collapsing at Rafferty's feet, he scarcely knows whether to believe her or not. Especially as, when she finally comes to, she seems uncertain herself whether or not she's done the mortal deed. Rafferty pretty soon discovers that she's no
t alone in her confusion.

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Nuns!
Lapsed Catholic DI Joe Rafferty thought, appalled to discover their latest murder case is located in an enclosed RC convent. What were a bunch of  penguin dressers doing getting involved in a suspicious death? he wonders. It's bad enough that he's forced to revisit his long-since and gladly abandoned Catholicism, but, at the same time, someone is trying to blackmail him. Strangely, his blackmailer fails to make any demands. Which is perhaps just as well, as his current case causes him more than enough angst.

Deadly Reunion #14

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Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty is barely back from his honeymoon before he has two unpleasant surprises. Not only has he another murder investigation–a poisoning courtesy of a school reunion–he also has four new lodgers, courtesy of his Ma, Kitty Rafferty. Ma is organising her own reunion and since becoming a silver surfer and getting on the internet, the number of Rafferty and Kelly family attendees has grown, like Topsy.

In his murder investigation, Rafferty has to go back in time to learn of all the likely motives of the victim's fellow reunees. But it is only when he is reconciled to his unwanted lodgers, that Rafferty finds the answers to his most important questions.

Kith and Kill #15