A David Vogel Mystery

The discovery of the partially clothed body of a teenage girl in the heart of Bristol's red light district indicates a tragic yet familiar scenario. But this marks the start of a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears. Fourteen-year-old Melanie Cooke told her mother she was visiting a school friend. Who was she really going to meet? Detective Inspector David Vogel is led towards three very different principal protagonists, each of whom grows increasingly chilling. But are they what they seem? And is any one of them capable of murder?

When Sir John Fairbrother, head of one of the world's biggest private banks, burns to death, along with his nurse, in a catastrophic fire at his Somerset manor house, Detective Inspector David Vogel finds himself dealing with a complex and mystifying sequence of events. If arson was involved, as Vogel believes, the obvious suspect is Sir John's chauffeur/gardener, George Grey...but is he guilty? Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and bring those responsible for the fire and two further suspicious deaths to justice, Vogel uncovers a tangled web of intrigue.

Jane Ferguson suffers from horrific nightmares which she claims not to be able to explain. And when her traumatised six-year-old daughter finds Jane dead, hanging by the neck in the hallway of the family's seaside home, it is assumed she took her own life. But routine police enquiries reveal evidence indicating that Jane has been murdered, and her businessman husband, Felix, commodore of the local yacht club, becomes the chief suspect. Called in to launch a major inquiry, Detective Inspector David Vogel, discovers that nothing connected with Jane Ferguson's death is as it seems.