The stalking horse - Jill McGown

Sixteen years ago Bill Holt was jailed for life for the murder of two people: Alison, a lifelong friend whom once people had assumed he’d marry, and a private detective. He knew he was innocent, but jury, judge and all his friends declared him guilty.

Now he was out on parole, and his first journey was back to the scene of the crime, the town where he’d worked and lived and where he had shares in Greystone, his grandfather’s firm.

He found that fashion had changed, the currency had changed, even the railway station was different. The people were altered too, by age and by affluence and not by incarceration. But they were still there: Alison’s husband, Bryant, Jeff and Thelma Spencer, his cousin Cassie Stone, smooth Charles Cartwright and Holt’s ex-wife, Wendy.

One of them was a killer and also a manipulator — one of them had framed him, and he’d spent sixteen years behind bars while the murderer grew fat and sleek on the profits of his company.

Bill Holt was a dangerous man.

With her usual insight into human behaviour, Jill McGown has created a novel full of tension and suspense. It is also a fine whodunnit and a satisfying mystery.