Bloodstones — David Ireland

Bloodstones: The Art Of Murder Death, lust and infidelity on a summer's day. Lives will change forever in the idyllic Cotswold countryside deep in the heart of the Bloodstones. Summer has arrived in a Cotswold village at the edge of the Severn Plain. Olivia Lowell is an unassuming person in her early fifties preparing for an exhibition of her watercolours in the local church during the village fete. Her newest work is a departure in style, an exorcism of her creative past. Her acute sense of detail coupled with her changing physical state alters her perception of her ordered life and the lives of those around her. Her husband, Gerald, is involved with a young girl. Olivia suspects nothing at first, but is uneasy about the changes within her and in the changes she notices in Gerald. During the fete, a body is discovered in the woods above the village. With a murder investigation in progress, the village is in turmoil. Gerald is missing, and Olivia's world is turned upside down. In the days following the murder, Olivia re-evaluates her safe and secure existence and discovers a person within herself of whom she had lost sight.