Stage Exit

In the Isle of Man's Gaiety Theatre, Lenny Barlow is bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in the men's toilets. But who's doing the killing? And why? Police officers Hannah Davis and Frankie MacEwen are left to investigate on their own as their detective inspector, Des Cartwright, slides deeper and deeper into an alcohol-fuelled haze. His alcohol consumption increases even more when he discovers that the victim was a visiting American film studio owner.

In the theatre, the actors are struggling with the script. It's a dramatization of Cordelia Armstrong's best-selling novel, 'The Death of Logic', but things are not going well. The situation turns critical when a brawl between the scriptwriter and the play's director breaks out during a live performance. A brawl that is witnessed by hundreds in the audience. A brawl that ends in another character's exit from the stage.

When the two police women discover their inspector in a drunken stupor on the floor of his home, they have to call for an ambulance to save his life. Now, they really are on their own. Yet, when Frankie and Hannah go to the wake of Frankie's grandmother, Hannah meets a strange lady with unusual talents. They will eventually ask for her help, but her clues seem as enigmatic as the lady herself. A day later, those clues lead the pair to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are risks being a police officer, and a face-to-face confrontation with the killer sees another death bringing the total to three.

A story of intrigue and hidden agendas. People are seldom who they seem to be. Scores have to be settled. Eventually, the two police women discover who the killer is. But is it going to cost one of them her life also? There' only one way for you to find out…