Brodie Farrell has been asked to find some strange things in the course of her business, but this time it’s personal. She’s searching desperately for a cure for her baby’s cancer.

Attempting to keep the business afloat in her absence, Brodie’s devoted friend and assistant, Daniel Hood, undertakes the hunt for a necklace stolen in a murderous robbery. Typically, his sense of fair play keeps him looking for the jewellery when a wiser man would have given up. After the first attack on him. Certainly after the second.

Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon, Brodie’s partner, investigates – partly as a distraction from his son’s illness, partly because he begins to suspect that the hand behind these events belongs to his old adversary, Terry Walsh. But Walsh has his own agenda, and his first priority requires something that only Deacon can give him. What he offers in return presents Deacon with an agonising dilemma…

“Well constructed…Bannister movingly reflects upon the lies sometimes told for love as Brodie makes a difficult choice in the surprising resolution.”  Publishers Weekly

“British author Bannister opens her well-constructed ninth Brodie Farrell mystery (after 2008’s Closer Still) on a somber note with a coldhearted driver running down a young couple outside a South Downs restaurant… Bannister movingly reflects upon the lies sometimes told for love as Brodie makes a difficult choice in the surprising resolution.”1st Feb 2010, Publishers Weekly