James Henry

January 1983, Blackwater Estuary. A new year brings a new danger to the Essex shoreline. An illicit shipment, bound for Colchester - 100 kilograms of powder that will accelerate tensions in the historic town, and leave its own murderous trace. DI Nicholas Lowry, and his team at Colchester CID must now develop a tolerance to one another, and show their own substance, to save Britain's oldest settlement from a new, unsettling enemy.

DI Nick Lowry is called upon to investigate two deaths at Fox Farm, the home of eminent historian Christopher Cliff. The body in the farmhouse kitchen is Cliff himself. The fox-disturbed body on the property boundary is as yet unidentified. He must enlist colleagues Daniel Kenton and Jane Gabriel to answer two key questions: just who was at the house with Cliff that morning, and just what has since happened to Cliff's wife?