A Very Mersey Murder

Introduction

IntroductionWelcome to the fifth book in the Mersey Mystery series. Those who have already read the earlier books in the series will already be familiar with Detective Inspector Andy Ross, Detective Sergeant Izzie Drake and the rest of the team that make up the fictional Merseyside Police Specialist Murder Investigation Team. For new readers I hope you will enjoy meeting the chief protagonists in this, their latest investigation, which begins before most of the team were born, on the day the England football team won football's world cup in July 1966.

A young woman is brutally r***d and murdered, her body left close to the old disused lighthouse at the local beauty spot of Hale, near Liverpool, her killing being followed by two more in the coming weeks. With no arrests being made the case is consigned to the cold case list and over time, virtually forgotten about. When a similar case occurs thirty-nine years later, with two identical killings taking place, it takes an intervention by the retired, former detective who investigated the original 'Lighthouse Murders' to inform the police that they may have a copycat killer at large. Worse still, there is a chance that the original killer may have resurfaced after all these years have passed.

With the prospect of a third murder strongly suggested, the case is passed to the Specialist Investigation Team, who under the overall leadership of Detective Chief Inspector Oscar Agostini, find themselves with one week to find the killer. Why a week? Because if the current murders follow the same pattern as the original killings, in one week's time the third murder will take place, and, following the pattern of the '66 murders, the next victim will be a female police officer!

With no clues, and not a suspect in sight, Andy Ross and his team face a race against time to try to identify and apprehend the vicious killer of young women. With a fresh-faced new detective joining the team, and with one of their number still on sick leave as a result of gunshot wounds suffered in a previous case, the team find themselves being assisted by a couple of unlikely citizens, and, for previous readers of the series, there is a fond return for criminal profiler and forensic anthropologist, Doctor Christine Bland.