Davenport and Lepage

Newly promoted Detective Inspector Andy Lepage is in charge of a murder investigation for the first time. It looks like a routine street crime, but how did it come about on the doorstep of one of Oxford’s ancient colleges? Who is the victim, and why was he out on the streets without a coat on a cold November night? Then an unexpected twist makes it a more personal affair, and Andy is forced to face difficult questions about his own identity.

The police are called when a young man is found dead in the garden of his family home. It looks like an all-too-familiar story of depression and despair, but when DCI Anna Davenport starts asking questions, a few things don’t quite add up. Short-staffed and with an important court case looming, she calls on her trusted assistant DI Andy Lepage to help to untangle the mystery.

Following the sudden disappearance of his wife, a police investigation soon starts to focus on eminent surgeon Leonard Martineau. Were they the devoted couple that they appeared to his colleagues? Or was one of her friends right to suggest that she was afraid of him? Is the next-door neighbour imagining things when she reports having seen him digging a grave in his back garden? Is her sister’s antipathy towards Leonard justified? Or is she just resentful and jealous of her sister’s marriage?