The Missing Dead

Brought to you by Penguin.

The unputdownable new novel in the No.1 digital bestselling Misty Isle series, starring DI Duncan McAdam.

Some secrets can’t be buried…

D.I. Duncan McAdam is called to a cemetery to investigate a desecrated grave. The deceased was the skipper of a trawler with a chequered past. Its crew all died in mysterious circumstances - one man fell to his death; the second took his own life; the third jumped from a rocky clifftop. Only one crewman remains.

When Duncan goes to interview the skipper’s widow, he finds her house ransacked, blood on the floor, and a body in the boot of her car. He soon realises that everyone on board that trawler was hiding something - and it all leads back to one stormy night at sea years ago.

As the case begins to spiral, Duncan’s own personal challenges with his son come back to haunt him. Can he find the only surviving crew member before it’s too late? What secrets did these men take with them to their graves? And why is someone willing to kill to unearth them now?

© J M Dalgliesh 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026