CLAIM YOUR DEAD

WHAT DOES IT COST TO LIVE FREE?

On a warm May night, a woman is found dead at the wheel of her car on a Birmingham back street, a single knife wound to her throat.
     
To DCI Robin Lyons, the clinical murder initially suggests organized crime, especially when she learns that Heather Pethick lived on a farm with access to secluded coves on the Cornish coastline. Was she a courier, delivering drugs or even people to a contact in the city?
   
The more Robin learns, though, the less likely that seems. Heather's distraught husband is adamant she'd never jeopardize the life the two of them had built with their four-year-old son, Mikey, especially as her own childhood had been precarious.
   
But then another woman goes missing - a woman with whom Heather had been seen in fraught conversation just hours before she died.
   
Uncovering the truth will take Robin down a rabbit hole into a world where nothing is what it seems and accountability is shrugged off as lightly as a summer jacket. She and her team will be forced to consider what it really means to live freely - and what that might cost other people.

PRAISE FOR THE DCI ROBIN LYONS SERIES
'Seriously good' LEE CHILD
'This is that deeply satisfying thing, a strong, deft thriller with real depth' TANNA FRENCH
'An absolute masterclass in plotting, but it's the characters who truly elevate this series' CAZ FREAR
'An engrossing read with character with real heart ... Highly recommended.' LISA BALLANTYNE
'A haunting, intricate tale, shot through with authenticity and humanity. A story that lingers' JOHN SUTHERLAND
'I loved Critical Incidents. In fact I devoured it. It's a brilliant combination of superb characterisation, humour and galloping plot: her best yet' SUSIE STEINER
'Smart, empathetic and all too real' LIZ NUGENT
'The queen of simmering tension;' M. J. ARLIDGE
'Exactly what great crime fiction should be: smart, twisty, shocking and compassionate' SARAH HILARY
'Crackles with tension' THE TIMES