Devil's Chimney

On a wild and stormy night on England’s south coast, ambitious young police constables Rutherford Barnes and Harriet Holden are doing the rounds when they see a burglar fleeing the scene of the crime - and the location is Harriet’s house. The ground floor is ransacked. Scrawled in red across one wall are the words: DEAD COPS SLEEP LONG.

Then a few days later, Harriet’s battered body is discovered in a shabby seafront hotel. Newly promoted to detective, Barnes vows to discover who killed his partner, and why.

Perfect for fans of Joy Ellis, Helen H. Durrant, Bill Kitson, Michael Hambling, Peter James, Angela Marsons, Rachel McLean, J.D. Kirk, Rachel Abbott, Elly Griffiths, J.M. Dalgliesh or Patricia Gibney.

THE DETECTIVE DC Rutherford Barnes is young, good-looking and ambitious — perhaps too ambitious for his own good. His all-consuming desire for promotion makes him vulnerable to temptation. His happy marriage to nursery school teacher Eve is marred only by the couple’s inability to conceive, leading Barnes to throw himself headlong into his work.

THE SETTING Set against the picturesque landscape of the South Downs, the Sussex seaside town of Eastbourne is packed with tourists during the summer — but it can seem pretty dismal during the winter months. Only fifty-odd miles from London, the town is not immune to the violence which occasionally spills over from the city. Pockets of deprivation and criminality exist alongside reminders of Eastbourne’s more genteel past in the grand Victorian hotels that line the seafront, the pier and the bandstand. The town also boasts one of Britain’s best-known — and most infamous — beauty spots, Beachy Head.

THE AUTHOR Adam Lyndon has been a serving UK police officer for more than twenty years, working across a range of disciplines including uniformed ops, firearms command and as a detective in CID and specialist investigations