Blood on the Cowley Road

by Peter Tickler

MEET DETECTIVE SUSAN HOLDEN. SOLVING CRIMES IN THE OXFORD MOST PEOPLE NEVER SEE

Sarah Johnson plunges to her death from the top of the multi-storey carpark, right in front of his prying camera. Was her death the result of a sick prank by an art student?

Sarah turns out to have a history of mental ill-health, so to DI Susan Holden, it looks like a straightforward case of suicide.

Then Jake Arnold, the last person Sarah phoned on her mobile, turns up dead in the River Isis, and Holden's preconceptions are thrown into disorder.

Now she and her colleagues are plunged into a race against time to stop any more deaths.

DISCOVER A CRIME THRILLER FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS

Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Robert Bryndza, Mel Sherratt, Angela Marsons, Colin Dexter, or Ruth Rendell.

THE DETECTIVE

DI Susan Holden is a police detective with anger management issues, a demanding mother and a searing determination to get to crack any case that comes her way in Oxford. She lives in an unprepossessing Victorian terrace, drinks too much Chardonnay and falls out with colleagues, witnesses and almost anyone who crosses her path.

THE SETTING

Her Oxford is a place where old ladies live in fear of lycra-clad cyclists, where you’re more likely to tread in a dog turd than nick a professor, and where mental health is a big an issue, but of less interest than Oxford United’s latest football game. It’s also a city where death comes with brutal finality – whether from the top of a grotty multi-storey car park, a careless care home and or on a dark wet night as Oxford’s adult learners wend their way home from their evening classes.