Deborah Fowler

Merrin McKenzie's return to her hometown of St Ives has been a fresh start all round. Putting aside her legal career, she's determined to give her all to the new artists' cooperative shop on vibrant Fore Street. There's also the tantalising prospect of something more than friendship with Chief Inspector Louis Peppiatt. When the glamorous and wealthy Roxy sails into St Ives, Merrin hopes she can cultivate a valuable customer for the shop. Roxy certainly makes an impression on everyone she meets, but her stories don't always add up and she leaves, in her wake, a mounting accumulation of death and destruction. As rumours stir, it becomes clear that Roxy harbours secrets in contrast to her glittering façade. Behind it Merrin will find a tangle of secrets including family tensions, hidden loyalties, and dangers that reach far beyond the dramatic Cornish coastline.

St Ives in summer hides its shadows well. And as the season gets underway, Chief Inspector Louis Peppiatt is handed a cold case: the disappearance of a local farmer over thirty years ago. Among his first stops is Merrin McKenzie, connected to the troubled family and to Peppiatt through a previous investigation. But who's still hiding the truth decades late? s Peppiatt and Merrin follow the faint threads of the past, they uncover shocking secrets and betrayals that expose the darker undercurrents of their seemingly peaceful Cornish town.

When tragedy brings Merrin McKenzie back to St Ives, she knows adjusting might take time, even with the comfort of Christmas back in her hometown. Stepping back from her career as a solicitor, she agrees to clean holiday rentals for her friends who own cottages nearby. She anticipates dirty laundry and sandy floors, but she didn''t sign up for a dead body, neatly tucked up in one of the guest beds.The police are baffled by the young man''s identity and the strangeness of his death. For Merrin, however, coincidences are beginning to stack up. Even though Inspector Louis Peppiatt is sceptical of her theories, something sinister is hiding beneath the festive surface of this charming seaside town. As the case unfolds, a dark side to the Cornish coast emerges. A&B has longstanding success with local crime writers. Deborah''s books will appeal to fans of Stephanie Austin and Rebecca Tope and viewers of TV shows like Doc Martin. Deborah Fowler has already attracted a hungry readership for her self-published crime novels, now more widely and energetically published by Allison & Busby. Meet Merrin, a holiday let cleaner in the idyllic St Ives, who has access to dark secrets, dirty laundry and the odd dead body to clean up.