A teacher is bludgeoned to death and a volatile black teenager is arrested: as far as DCI Michael Thackeray is concerned, that's it, case closed. Though absent at the time of the murder and subsequent arrest, Thackeray is convinced that it was an open-and-shut case; that justice has been done. But when his long-term girlfriend, Laura Ackroyd, begins digging into the case for a newspaper article she's working on, some disturbing facts come to light facts that cause the case against the accused youngster to unravel at an alarming rate and lead Thackeray to wonder if there could have been a sinister reason behind the youth's speedy arrest. With the case re-opened, it becomes clear that difficult questions need to be asked and Thackeray soon finds himself under attack from within the Police Force, as his own loyalty and integrity are called into question. Under threat from all sides, can Thackeray - his career and his personal life - survive the heavy strain of suspicion, or will the pressure finally become too much?
Patricia Hall remembers telling stories to her little sisters when she was six years old, and by the time she was in her early teens she was sure that she was going to be a writer one day. She gained a a degree in English before becoming a journalist and working for The Guardian and the BBC in London, amongst others.
On 1991 her first crime novel, The Poison Pool, was published in London and New York and this was followed by a book a year. Most feature her feisty heroine, reporter Laura Ackroyd and her on-off lover DCI Michael Thackeray. They are set in the decaying industrial towns of West Yorkshire and the nearby countryside of the Yorkshire Dales. In 2011 she launched a new series with Dead Beat, casting a sceptical eye on "Swinging London" in the 1960s. The sequel, Death Trap, will be published in 2012.
Patricia is married and now lives in Oxford. She has two grown up sons and a grand-daughter.
Visit Patricia's web-site at www.patriciahall.co.uk
