Shades of Murder

Meredith and Markby are almost ready to leave on a long planned canal barge trip, but Meredith is having reservations. Then the 12-year-old corpse of a missing teenage girl is dug up in the local graveyard. The vacation is off (to Meredith's relief), but the investigation is on.

When Meredith Mitchell bumps into her old school friend Rachel Hunter at the Chelsea Flower Show, she is shocked to discover that she was the first wife of her companion, Chief Inspector Alan Markby. But the meeting is not the only surprise; before the afternoon is out, Markby has a death on his hands.

When a hotelier announces that he will be converting Springwood Hall into a smart country hotel, his plan is greeted with a chorus of local disapproval, led by the fearsome Hope Mapple, head of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Bamford. So the grand opening, to which all are invited, promises to be a lively affair, particularly since Hope is planning a disruptive protest "streak". However, Hope is to be unwittingly upstaged by the discovery of a recently murdered body on the premises.

Where Old Bones Lie is set on an isolated archaeological dig in the Cotswolds. When a body is found near the site, the suspects, witnesses, and clues all conflict, and the disappearance of a group of New Age travellers just seems to add to the mystery. Superintendent Markby and Meredith Mitchell must untangle the mess, and in doing so find themselves in a dangerous and uncompromising situation.

It sends a shiver down Detective Superintendent Alan Markby's spine when he hears that a rambler has stumbled across human bones in Stovey Woods in the heart of the Cotswolds. Twenty-two years earlier, as a fresh-faced young inspector, he had a rare failure, in the hunt for a brutal serial rapist preying on local women. After the third rape, the attacker went to ground, never to be heard of again.