Smoke Damage

Chief Inspector Keith Penrose is hunting a serial arsonist – the investigation is going nowhere and his boss is hounding him. His son Will has left the army in unexplained circumstances, drinking hard and causing a good deal of grief at home. His wife Barbara blames Keith for everything – ‘if only you’d spent more time at home...’ 

Felicity delighted with her new granddaughter finds herself being bullied by her ever reliably self-centred daughter into babysitting whilst Mel pursues her career.  Felicity has a ‘red hot date’ with a very eligible widower and acquires a more permanent male companion – very small on four legs. 

Despite all these anxieties Felicity and Keith do get to the bottom of this complicated affair which stretches from way back in the past. In the process they learn more about themselves and their relationship.


‘The stories all are marked by a delightful warmth and humanity, the poignancy and sensitivity, along with lots of gentle joys, counterpointing the tragedies of murders and hatreds’. 

Ewan W. Wilson – Crime buyer - Waterstones Glasgow