The Reckoning - Rennie Airth

The Second World War has ended, leaving a bruised and fragile peace. But this tranquility is threatened when a shocking murder takes place in the Sussex countryside. Before long, police experts discover a link to another earlier killing, hundreds of miles away…

While Scotland Yard detective Billy Styles struggles to find a link between these two murders, a strange twist of fate beings former Detective Inspector John Madden into the investigations.

As the victim count rises, it becomes clear that to catch this serial killer, Madden. Styles and young policewoman Detective-Constable Lily Poole must act quickly. But Madden remains haunted by the mysteries at the heart of the case. Why was his name in a letter that the second target had been penning just before he died? Could the real clue to these perplexing murders lie within the victims pasts? And within his own?

With the stunning, atmospheric crime novel – teeming with twists and moving between the 1950s and the First and Second World Wars – Rennie Airth, the author of River of Darkness, The Blood-Dimmed Tide and The Dead of Winter presents his greatest and most compelling novel yet.