The Book of L:ife — John Barber

Whilst the directors of the Rutherford Corinthian Football Club arrive for a board meeting on the first floor Ben Davies a fellow director is found downstairs in the clubhouse bar with his throat cut.

Newly promoted to Chief Inspector, Steve Winwood and Detective Sergeant Emma Porter soon realise that the Board all stood to gain a considerable amount of money from the sale of the club.

Topper Supermarkets were the only ones able to repay the loans made to the club by Davies and with the repayment comes a considerable profit for each of them.



But that would involve a threat to the survival of the club itself and the reasons for its existence. The club is governed by a set of bizarre and eccentric rules established by its founder who was considered insane by most of the town.

The appointment of Davies does not fit easily with this established constitution and his own background is shrouded in mystery.

Emma finds herself the object of desire by both male and female suitors from within the town's social elite who are being drawn into Winwood's investigation. The net widens to members of the local amateur dramatic society who were part of a previous investigation into a murder at the Fleetwood Arms Hotel.

Ben Davies background and reasons for his investment become clearer as the detectives continue digging. Winwood has to re-open an investigation into the Fleetwood Arms murder and approach the suspects in that murder case from a completely different and unorthodox angle.

He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches into the deepest and most respected social and professional layers of the town and writes a new chapter in his own Book of Life.