She Had To Die — Russell James

After five years she’s back: the girl Nick Chance fell for at school. She went on to university, while he stayed in Bristol and tried to make a career in rock groups. Now he plays sax in a jazz/rock group, Blue Delta, due to play for the first time this year at Glastonbury. But then comes tragedy. When he helps Babette on a ‘jaunt’ to expose malpractice in a meat-processing plant she is killed in a horrific accident. Or was it an accident?Nick is suddenly a ‘person of interest’ to the police, to intruders in his flat, to New Age apostles of extended life, to animal rights activists, even to workers at the plant. These activists are not soft-hearted. Their tactics include arson, bombs and death. Nick’s quest to find what really happened leads him into the dark and complex world of food politics and a reeking broth of conspiracy, deceit and fraud, all of which comes to a boil the night Blue Delta first mounts the Glastonbury stage. It should be the night that makes Blue Delta, but will it be the night that breaks every dream he had?