MEET DETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN IN THIS PAGE-TURNING NEW SERIES FROM A FORMER POLICE OFFICER.

Please note that this book was previously published as “Deadly Secrets.”

Praise for David Hodges
‘Extremely well-written and passionately described crime-scenes’ – Mid Somerset Series

‘Hodges uses the experience of 30-plus years in the job as an anvil of solid fact to beat out pacey tales of “canteen culture” cops’ – Cheddar Valley News

Detective Kate believes that her own number is up when she finds herself staring at the wrong end of a double-barrelled shotgun on a sodden stretch of Somerset marshland.

She’s on the trail of villain Lenny Stallard who has just broken out of prison. He was serving time for the murder of the elderly wife of a colonel during a robbery at their country residence near Bridgwater.

Revenge appears to be the motive and for DS Lewis’s superiors it is a cut-and-dried case as the bodies of trial witnesses begins to mount up. But it’s all a bit too convenient.

Kate might have been taken off the case but the surprises are not over yet. And she never gives up in her quest for the truth.

DISCOVER A BREATH-TAKING NEW SERIES OF MYSTERIES THAT YOU WON’T WANT TO PUT DOWN

Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Robert Bryndza, Mel Sherratt, Angela Marsons, Colin Dexter, or Ruth Rendell.

THE DETECTIVES
Kate is a feisty, young police detective, with a dynamic approach to her job. She is plucky and tenacious, but prone to being impetuous and headstrong, which often lands her in tight spots and does not exactly endear her to her crusty boss, DI Ted Roscoe.

In stark contrast to Kate, her detective partner, Hayden, is an overweight, untidy ex-public schoolboy, with a pompous, laid-back attitude, which drives her to distraction. But he is also highly intelligent, with a keen, analytical mind and a practical, reasoned approach to everything, which, with a prevailing wind, can sometimes act as a brake on his partner’s more impulsive actions.

THE SETTING
A patchwork of fields, peat moor and marshland, dotted with picturesque villages and criss-crossed by man-made irrigation ditches or rhynes, the Somerset Levels covers an area of about 160,000 acres between the Mendips and Quantock Hills, in the County of Somerset. Sparsely populated outside the local towns of Bridgwater, Glastonbury and Street and prone to flooding, it is a haven for wild life, a wild, secret place with an atmospheric brooding stillness, which creeps into the very soul; a place where the booming call of a bittern or the beating of an owl’s wings in the mist is bound to fire the imagination of any self-respecting crime novelist, whose thoughts will invariably turn to… murder.

THE AUTHOR
A former police superintendent, with thirty years’ service. Since ‘turning to crime’, he has received critical media acclaim, including a welcome accolade from Inspector Morse’s creator, the late great, Colin Dexter, and he is now a prolific novelist with eleven published crime novels and an autobiography on his police career to his credit. His previous police experience has enabled him to provide a gritty realism to his thrillers and his Somerset Murder Series, featuring feisty female detective, Kate, and her partner, Hayden, has gone from strength to strength, attracting interest in the United States as well as in the UK.

DETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN MYSTERY SERIES
Book 1: MURDER ON THE LEVELS
Book 2: REVENGE ON THE LEVELS
Book 3: FEAR ON THE LEVELS
Book 4: KILLER ON THE LEVELS
Book 5: SECRETS ON THE LEVELS