This is the fourth in a series of light-hearted detective stories in which the vicar of Sherburn is caught up in seedy circumstances not of his own making and obliged, given the inertia of the local police forces, to conduct murder investigations himself. However, the dead man doesn't stay dead for long because weeks later, he is seen alive.
When Lady Amelia Walden is murdered at Monk Fryston Hall Hotel in Yorkshire on the night of her eightieth birthday, the chief suspect is Robert Purbright, a bachelor in his fifties engaged at Farlington Hall, to catalogue her extensive collection of stamps. He is found not guilty but Lady Amelia’s son, Toby, vows to prove the verdict wrong.
On the morning following the feast of St Giles, 1 September 1966, the Bishop of Worcester, the Right Reverend Giles Wyndham-Brookes is found slumped and lifeless in his study at Hartlebury Castle, his official residence. He had seemingly tripped on an edge of carpet and hit his head on the fender; but there is a distinct whiff of murder in the air.
When the police fail to make an arrest in a murder-case after a year’s investigation, three individuals try independently to solve the murder for purposes of their own. They make progress but not enough. They all agree that the dead man’s will might be important – but how? DI Moat of the North Yorks force is called in to find out.
Murder comes in all shapes and sizes. It also comes at inconvenient times. Christmas, for example. This anthology has all the classic motives: blackmail, revenge, lust, greed, anger… And there’s more! Humour, intrigue, suspense…
From the top of the stairs, a little girl of five overhears an argument between her father and a late-night visitor. Frightened she dared not descend the staircase. Her father is killed. She did not see the killer but remembers the killer’s voice. Twenty years later she recognises the voice, identifies its owner and sets out to take her revenge.
A dirty bomb explodes amidst an anti-war protest in North London. Tara Drake is a highly trained MI5 agent, called in to assist the investigation with the help of DI Dave Perry.
Tragic events unfold and Perry is forced into a confrontation against a formidable foe. His fight for survival is played out to its shattering climax.
Neal James takes his sequel to ‘A Ticket to Tewkesbury’ into a frighteningly possible future. ‘Day of the Phoenix’ portrays a fictional Britain where the use of the ballot box is manipulated to further the aims of a radical political society, and where the lessons of history are all too easily forgotten.
Peter Milton had always promised himself he would never again live in poverty, as he had done as a child. That promise became an obsession, so great, it took over his life.
