Dead & Buried — Helen H. Durrant

Forty years ago something terrible happened in Annie's new house . . .Annie Naden and her husband buy a remote country cottage at auction. It's the home they always wanted, but as they begin renovations, Annie discovers a satchel in a dusty old hidden cupboard.Inside are the usual schoolbooks, now over forty years old, and a girl's diary. Among the record of day-to-day crushes and pop concerts, is a secret whose terrible consequences are still resonating to this day.Detective Inspector Tom Calladine has problems of his own. A notorious villain, Vinny Costello, seems to be back in town, and the bodies soon stack up. With Calladine's loyal Detective Sergeant Ruth Bayliss on maternity leave, he gets in hot water with one of Costello's assistants, and must also cope with an abrasive new member of the team as they seek to untangle a complex series of murders.What happened to that girl forty years ago? And what's it got to do with the current crime wave?If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel McLean, J.D. Kirk, Ian Rankin or Rachel Abbott, you'll love this bestselling crime fiction writer.WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT DEAD & BURIED: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I highly recommend this author to any reader who enjoys British police procedurals and an intriguing mystery.' Maria⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'The best Helen H. Durrant yet! I enjoyed this novel so much that I didn't want it to end. And it ends on a great cliff hanger!' Flutterby Dee⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Lots of threads running through this gritty read, kept me glued to the storyline from start to finish.' P.A. Burton⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Couldn't put this down. Another winner from this fabulous author.' Merlin M.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Fast, gripping crime thriller with plenty of twists, hooks you from the start.' Ann L.MEET THE DETECTIVESTom Calladine is a single, fifty-one-year-old detective inspector who is devoted to his job. His personal life, however, is not so successful. Having been married and divorced before the age of twenty-one has set a pattern that he finds difficult to escape.Ruth Bayliss is in her mid-thirties, plain-speaking and loyal. She wishes she had more time for the gym and a love life. She uses her demanding workload as an excuse not to try too hard with the men she meets.THE SETTINGThe series is set in the fictional village of Leesdon on the outskirts of an industrial northern English city. There is little work and a lot of crime. The bane of Calladine's life is the Hobfield housing estate, breeding ground to all that is wrong with the area that he calls home.