Book excerpt: In a hot, sun scorched English valley, a young male is found dead. A few days later in Austria, another young male is found dead. Is there a connection between the two and if so, what is it? DCI Mark Morgan from Hipton, England, together with Chief Inspector Zweig, from Mayrhofen, Austria, try to solve what might be a double murder. But there seems to be precious little to go on and progress in the case is agonisingly slow until a letter is discovered in an attic of a house in the small Austrian village of Schwendau. Could this letter hold a clue about the deaths of the two young men? What seems to be a simple communication is far from that. It is a voice from the past, a letter which hints at a very dark time during the Second World War. There are references to Himmler and concentration camps, but this letter was never posted, so is it just a distraction for Morgan and Zweig, or is it crucial evidence in their quest to track down the killer? Time moves on and still the case is beset by complications and unknowns until a third murder is committed, back on English soil. Can Mark Morgan connect this murder with the other two and if so, what are the implications? The case goes from being an intriguing puzzle to a complex series of problems which need to be solved in a race against time, in case the killer strikes again. On the home front, Mark Morgan has problems of his own. His relationships seem to be taking a nosedive out of all control. Shocking news about his father finally comes to light and his brother is off to Russia for who knows how long, sending the family into confusion. This novel can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story in its own right with a dramatic plot, full of complex twists and turns, or it can be read as a sequel to ‘The Quiet Deaths’ where the central characters are introduced; chiefly DCI Mark Morgan and his family and friends. As in the first book, there are plenty of back stories where the reader can find out what’s new in the lives of the central characters. There is a lot of humour in the novel for the reader to enjoy, despite the dark tone of much of the main plot. The novel will leave readers with a lot to think about, especially in the context of war, family, trust and loyalty and raises some thorny issues to grapple with.