Fallen Gods

Book 13: BOB SKINNER

by Quintin Jardine

Genres: General Fiction; City Life; Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

The heat is on for DCC Bob Skinner. His career hangs by a thread, as a recent illness has given his enemies a weapon to use against him. A body found in the detritus of a flood is identified as the hated brother whose existence he has kept hidden for years. And an incendiary device destroys a valuable painting in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.

As Skinner and his team tackle these crises, his wife Sarah, recovering from the loss of her parents, finds comfort with an old college lover. When fate leaves her staring at a seemingly inevitable murder conviction, Bob will need all his resources to sort out the tangled mess his life has become.

Release date: November 13, 2008

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 434

Sample

‘Where the hell is the wee toerag?’ Detective Inspector Charlotte Mann muttered grimly, as the wide doors slid together behind a portly middle-aged man in a colourful shirt and shorts, pushing a laden trolley. ‘How big is that bloody plane? There must have been three hundred people through by now. It can’t be bigger than that, surely.’

‘Excuse me, please.’

The passenger had manoeuvred his unstable vehicle around the retaining barrier. Lottie looked at him, and realised that she was blocking his progress.

‘Sorry,’ she said, stepping aside. ‘Are you off the Dubai flight?’ she asked as he made his way past her.

The traveller nodded.

‘Are there many left in the baggage hall?’ she asked.

‘I’m the last one,’ he replied mournfully. ‘They’ve lost one of my wife’s cases,’ he added. ‘It just had to be the one with all the family presents in it.’

‘There’s nobody else there? No one at all?’

‘No,. . .