Synopsis

Private Investigator Joe Wilde is investigating the murder of Philippa Redmond a former Labour MP. She had been found dead in her sauna over the Christmas holidays six weeks ago. The majority of her family had been staying with her at the time, but the police didn’t regard any of them as suspects. Evidence suggested an intruder had got into her home.

Joe also takes on a cold case of a missing woman named Julie Turnbull. She had disappeared six years ago without a trace. Meanwhile Joe’s good friend DI Whatmore is investigating the horrific murder of a woman who was burnt to death in her own home. His investigation crosses over with Joe’s missing person investigation. As they conduct their own investigations there are more killings.

DI Whatmore and Joe must join forces to track down a serial killer and solve a puzzling mystery, but doing so puts them and others in grave danger.

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Excerpt

‘You’re sick in the head Terry, was it really necessary?’

‘What are you going on about, Oliver?’

‘It’s all over the news — you think I wouldn’t have found out dumb-ass.’

‘Obviously you were going to find out what I had done, but I didn’t tell you at the time as you would have tried to stop me.’

‘Yeah you’re damn right I would have tried to stop you. Giving someone a beating, breaking a few bones if necessary is one thing, but fucking murder, that is not what I signed up for.’

‘The boss said we were to do whatever was necessary, if you’re not cut out for this you can always walk away now. I know that you won’t though for two reasons, first because you desperately need the money, and second because of your loyalty to the big man.’

Oliver didn’t try to argue back as he knew he was right.

‘So after you put some of the things you’d taken from her house in the boot then said you were going to quickly go back and nab some more, what you actually did was take a can of petrol you had in your boot, poured it over her, then set it alight.’

‘Well done Sherlock.’

‘Well I hope you killed her quickly before you set her on fire. If you set her on fire while she was still alive then you really are one sick bastard.’

‘Of course I did, what do you take me for?’

Oliver wasn’t convinced by his denial, he had seen the look on his face when he had been torturing the woman in order to extract information. It was like he was taking some sort of sadistic pleasure from her suffering.

‘The burning of her body was necessary in order to hide her wounds so the police won’t realise she was tortured.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, but even if that works why would they think a burglar would decide to tie her to a chair and then kill her?’ Asked Oliver.

‘They might think that she caught the burglar in the act so had to be silenced.’

‘But then if the burglar had managed to tie her to a chair there would be no need to kill her, they would just gag her. You are nowhere near as clever as you think you are, Terry.’

‘Oh who cares and stop worrying, even if the police do discover that she was tortured before she was killed I doubt they will work out the motive let alone catch us. Anyway we need to focus on the task in hand; the next target should hopefully rear his ugly head very soon. And don’t worry we won’t need to kill this one as he will have no idea about what we are looking for.’

Thirty minutes later.

‘Look there he is.’

‘Where? I can’t see him’

‘He’s behind us, look in your wing mirror, he’s about a hundred and fifty yards away.’

‘Are you sure it’s him?’

‘Positive, I would recognise that lanky awkward gait of his anywhere. We should wait until he is alongside us then jump him.’

‘OK, let’s do this.’

‘OK, on my count of three, three, two, one, go!’

They both quickly got out of the car.

‘Hi there Simon, long time no see.’

About the Author

C.D. Steele is the author of the Joe Wilde mystery thriller series. There are three books in the series. False Truth, which was published by The Book Guild on 28/04/21, Dark Truth, which was published by The Conrad Press on 15/11/23, and Hidden Truth, which was independently published on 31/12/25.

He works as an Executive Officer in the Civil Service, has a degree in Recreation Management, and lives in County Down, Northern Ireland.

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