Scafell

A mutilated body popping up lake-side is not the peaceful start Stephen 'Sparky' Markham was hoping for when he moved up to the Lake District to come to terms with disastrous recent events involving his family.

Across a rain-drenched and wintry landscape, things begin to get bleaker and increasingly more surreal for Sparky when his best friend Detective Charlie Slider does a sudden disappearing act, a crafty old nemesis rears his head unexpectedly, and Sparky finds himself thrust into a weird plot apparently involving fracking magnate Silas Mourner, his aide and a shadowy figure connecting crime networks across Europe.

What Sparky hoped was going to be a cathartic period in a rural idyll passing time bird-watching and trail-running the fells, transforms into a hallucinatory and nightmarish world which increasingly appears to be a trap laid only for him.

This is the first crime novel featuring Sparky Markham. It mixes mystery, surrealism, humour and is set to a soundtrack of rock 'n' roll, blues, jazz, country and electronic music.