DS Tomek Bowen Crime Thriller

Southend-on-Sea, Essex: Detective Sergeant Tomek Bowen — driven, dogged, and haunted by the death of his brother — is called to one of the most shocking crime scenes he has ever seen. A man has been ritualistically murdered and dumped in an allotment near the local airport. Early investigations indicate this was a man with a past. A past that earned him many enemies. But when another victim is found murdered under similar circumstances, it becomes clear that Bowen is on the trail of a serial offender.

Annabelle Lake thought she recognised the Ford Fiesta waiting outside her school, and the driver in it. She was wrong. Her body is discovered some time later, dangling from a swing in a local playground on Canvey Island. The post-mortem shows she’s been fed, clothed and kept warm. That whoever was responsible had looked after her. But when another girl goes missing and is found in a similar fashion, that’s where the similarities end.

When the fog clears one December morning in Essex, the body of a teenage girl is discovered lying face down in a field. The victim, Lily Monteith, was murdered in a peculiar and unique way — so unique that it could have only happened to her. As a result, the case quickly lands on DS Tomek Bowen’s desk who, while trying to juggle his newfound life as a single parent to a thirteen-year-old daughter, must unearth the deadly sequence of events and bring the truth to light.

When the body of a homeless man is discovered on Southend seafront, wedged between the beach huts of Thorpe Bay, the people of Essex don’t raise an eyebrow. But when the post-mortem reveals the identity to be that of local MP, Herbert Tucker, the town begins to sit up.

On a windy and blistering cold morning, Morgana Usyk, owner of one of DS Tomek Bowen’s favourite haunts, Morgana’s Café, visits Mulberry Harbour a little over a mile out to sea. A short while later, her body is found in the shallows, floating beside the harbour.