The first is to discover who is sending offensive poison pen letters to hotel receptionist Lucy Barker. On her first day back after the Easter break, Manchester based PI Sal Kilkenny takes on two new cases. Written with beautiful attention to the nuances of everyday life, Towers of Silence is an emotionally involving journey into the heart of a city hiding dark secrets. The results are puzzling and before long she is led in unexpected directions that will take her closer to danger and heartbreak than ever before…

With mixed feelings, Sal agrees to tail the difficult teenager and discover where he goes and what he does. Why would a woman so petrified of heights choose to jump from the top of Manchester’s parking garage? Meanwhile Sal is also busy on another case involving a sullen teen. Eventually persuaded to help the family trace their mother Miriam’s last hours, Sal is ashamed to realize how little the authorities had bothered to investigate and starts to have her own suspicions about the death. So when she is asked to investigate a suicide that a grieving family cannot come to terms with, she turns the case down. It’s the count down to Christmas and Sal Kilkenny is exhausted even just thinking about the festive season the tree, presents for the kids, who to invite and what to have for Christmas dinner.

Dead to me cath staincliffe