Brighton's No. 1 Private Detective

Blacklisted by the police. Being sued by a client. And broke. Things can’t get any worse for Brighton’s No. 1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz, in this blistering debut novel from award-winning writer Tom Trott. That’s when his best friend’s body washes up on the beach. Could it really have been 10 years? How could his life have ended like this? He needs answers. But with the city in the grips of organised crime, and struggling to deal with an influx of legal highs, who cares about just another dead drug dealer?

It’s been three days and now everyone in Brighton is looking for her. There is an army of police searching, her picture is on every front page, and the public can’t get enough of it. Gangs of good citizens are going door to door, turning their neighbors’ houses upside down, but still no one can find her. For Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz, it brings back too many memories of his first case, another missing girl, when he learnt too many lessons the hard way.

A cryptic message from an old friend leads Joe Grabarz to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the South Downs. But Joe is too late, someone else has got there first: his friend is dead, and all the evidence points to him. Ten years ago the farmhouse was the scene of three infamous murders when a young boy killed his mother, father, and little sister. Now an adult, he was released from prison with a new identity.