Truth Lies Buried — Lesley Welsh

Drive. Keep quiet. Don't touch the boss's wife…Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Sam Riley leaves the army disillusioned and lonely, but alive, and finds work as a bouncer at an Essex nightclub. After defusing a particularly nasty situation, Sam is employed as a personal security guard for Monica, wife of local gangster Benny, and their young son, Brando. Seduced by glamorous, manipulative Monica, Sam is persuaded to help Benny find his way to a shallow woodland grave.

But even as Sam and partner Joe leave the crime scene, the plan takes an unforeseen twist, and everything begins to unravel; Monica disappears, leaving Sam to babysit Brando, while every Essex villain lines up to take over Benny's empire.

One killing follows another as Monica desperately clings to power, and Sam is forced to confront the ghosts of a traumatic youth in order to protect Brando from a similar fate.