Philip Dryden

Local journalist Philip Dryden is called to an incident at the nearby River Lark. The police think they’re just pulling out a dumped car from the icy depths - big deal.

Until they open the car boot.

A frozen and barely recognisable corpse, twisted to fit in the compact space.

But it’s only the beginning.

The next day, high on the roof of Ely Cathedral, a second body is found on a stone gargoyle. The coroner says it’s death by misadventure, but Dryden knows better.

A killer is stalking the Fens.

Philip Dryden is reporting on the discovery of the body of a WWII prisoner in a tunnel from a PoW camp in the fens, found in an archeological dig. Only when a recent murder is committed do the police also investigate the death in the tunnel.

Whilst writing an article about hypothermia Philip Dryden gets drawn into the previous lives of two unfortunate people who have frozen to death.

Local reporter Philip Dryden is with the army, on practice manoeuvres at the abandoned hamlet of Jude’s Ferry, when a skeleton hanging from a noose is discovered in the cellar of an old pub. Two days later a terrified man is pulled from the river with no idea of who he is and only one name on his lips, “Jude’s Ferry”.

Journalist Philip Dryden is shocked to be informed by police that his father has been killed in a car accident - as he always believed that he drowned during the fenland floods of 1977, 35 years before. At the same time, two unrelated cases are demanding Dryden's professional attention: As Dryden pieces the clues together, he realizes that the three cases may be related after all....

The 'Funeral' Owl is supposedly an omen of death, so when there's a rare sighting, Philip Dryden, editor of the local newspaper, has a sense of foreboding. When Dryden is asked for help in solving a horrifying ten-year-old cold case, he uncovers a curious link between some seemingly unrelated cases: It would appear the sighting of the Funeral Owl is proving prophetic in more ways than one.