Stone Dead
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Stone Dead is Frank Smith's second novel featuring British Chief Inspector Neil Paget.
A routine robbery investigation turns into something much more sinister when a corpse is found in the well of a cottage belonging to photographer Peter Foster. Foster fears the body is the ex-husband of his current girlfriend, a model shooting on location in France. Worse, he fears Lisa may have killed him.
But Lisa herself has mysteriously disappeared, and the true identity of the corpse adds a strange twist to the already-convoluted crime. A murder has taken place--but who is the victim, and who is the killer? It seems everyone involved knows something, but not enough to piece together an emerging puzzle of love and hate--until a fatal mistake leads Paget to the shocking solution . . . in Frank Smith's Stone Dead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Instantly gripping and wonderfully perplexing, this English procedural begins with what looks like an open-and-shut case of murder: photographer Peter Foster has shot and killed someone in the bedroom of the well-appointed cottage he shares with his lover, top model Lisa Remington. In a well on the property, the police discover a corpse with its face blown away. Foster says it is Lisa's abusive ex-husband, whose body he discovered in the house shortly after Lisa left to go on location. Lisa's ex turns up alive, however, while Lisa herself is missing. The case becomes increasingly complex as Detective Chief Inspector Neil Paget, always methodical, dour and shrewd, and Sergeant John Tregalles, ever upbeat and capable, tap into the greatest resource a country policeman could utilize: local gossip. Smith, who introduced Paget and company in Fatal Flat (1996), features a broad spectrum of both London and rural citizens: stylish models; clannish farmers; malevolent parents; inept constables. There's also a keenly rendered lineup of extremely clever suspects: the jealous ex-husband; a protective father; a rejected suitor. A neatly integrated subplot about a child stalker adds another dimension. There even seems to be glimmerings of a romance for the stoic Paget. This village mystery is beguiling from beginning to end.
