DI Matthew Venn peels back layer upon layer to discover the dark secrets one family is keeping in this searing new novel, brimming with energy and taut with claustrophobic tension.

A scorching heatwave marks the start of the summer in Devon. Detective Matthew Venn is called in to investigate a puzzling death, when the body of a young woman, Lottie, is found in the swimming pool of a luxurious holiday home. The girl’s best friend, Hannah, whose family owns the house, is missing. The girls had arrived a few days earlier to celebrate the end of their school exams, quickly stirring unrest in the small community with incendiary social media videos mocking the place as parochial.

When further tragedy strikes, Venn and his team begin questioning a community filled with secrets. The fact that Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, is a rising political star with powerful enemies draws intense media scrutiny to the case.

With the summer heat come holidaymakers, and it emerges that some of them may have stronger connections with the Armstrong family than first thought. Venn knows all too well that the real answers lie not in what people say, but in the silences that they keep.

Taut, atmospheric, and brimming with suspense, this searing new novel finds DI Matthew Venn caught between a powerful family’s secrets and a powder keg of local tensions.

A politician arrives at his holiday home expecting to find his daughter and her friend already there. Instead the friend is floating in the pool, dead, and his daughter is missing, then found dead. DI Matthew Venn leads the investigation and at every turn there seem to be more and more secrets making it hard to tell which secret may have led to the girls’ deaths.

The main plot of the book is, of course, the murders of the two girls though we have a secondary sub-plot about Matthew’s husband Jonathan who has found his biological mother.  Matthew’s investigation moves along at a solid pace though there are several possible suspects and motives.  I really did not see the murderer’s identity coming at all.  Jonathan’s meeting with his biological mother was a welcome glimpse into Matthew’s private life even as a Matthew begins to be more comfortable with his own mother.

We see character growth in all our main characters, and the glimpses into their private lives gives us even more investment in the series and the characters as a whole. I really enjoy this series, I was really disappointed that there was not a second TV series after 2021's The Long Call, Ms Cleeve’s works are so suited to adaptation I was hoping for a long run like Vera and Shetland.  So I will have to content myself with just the books and hope there is not a three-year gap before we see our next investigation with DI Matthew Venn. Highly recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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