Ladybird

A young widow is found dead in a burning glove workshop. The police call it arson. Two unlikely detectives know that is only half the story. When a workshop on the lane to Bladon goes up in the September dusk, a toddler is pulled alive from the smoke. Her mother, glovress Nora Kinlan, is not. The case draws Hester Croft, sharp-tongued, formidable, and the only person in town inclined to mistrust a story everyone has agreed is true, and Gertie Bundle, landlady of the Old Pyed Bull, into their third investigation together. Inspector Wallace of the Oxfordshire CID arrests the workshop's owner before the embers are out. Hester does not agree. Nora was a quiet woman. A widow with a small daughter, a clean cottage, and the sort of secret that does not stay clean for long. As Hester and Gertie pull at the threads Nora left behind, the small Oxfordshire market town shows them what it has chosen, since the war, not to remember. Ladybird Ladybird is the third Woodstock Mystery - a clever, character-driven whodunnit perfect for fans of classic English cosy crime.

Pages: 200, Paperback, Independently published