A world in ruin. A country on its knees. A young girl, dead by the side of the river…
It is late August in a long, hot summer. The small Thames Valley village of Long Whittingbourne moves at a different pace to the chaotic outside world. It's a place where time has stopped, where the ravages and outrages of society have yet to reach. The surrounding fields have turned brown, swallows play amongst the willows that hang low over the silent, barely moving river. Women standing lifeless at windows watch the world pass by. Artworks of women standing at windows appear to come alive. Perhaps time has slowed to their static pace. Perhaps there's something mysterious, something dark in the air.
The murder investigation is handed to Beth Faraday, on her first day as a newly-qualified Detective Constable. Being all the station can afford, she is given no team, no back-up, no resources.
Faraday, however, is plagued by her own secrets, and the strange, lonely women who inhabit paintings are reaching out from their silent dominion to pull her in.
Faraday must escape from her past to solve the murder or be lost to the world forever…
"Douglas Lindsay is someone deserving to be spoken of as a master." SHOTS
"One of the rising stars of tartan noir." PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Lindsay is an underrated writer with an eccentric, blisteringly satirical voice." SUNDAY EXPRESS