The Mill on the Shore

Book excerpt: Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now in print for the first time in the US. Meg Morrissey refuses to believe that her husband James committed suicide. James was in high spirits after he’d finally completed his long-awaited autobiography. He didn’t leave a suicide note. But even more suspicious: the record of his life’s environmental achievement, his magnum opus, has gone missing. Troubled, Meg calls in amateur sleuths George and Molly Palmer-Jones to investigate. They soon uncover that life in the Morrissey family is not as idyllic as it seems—relations with James’ ex-wife Cathy are not as friendly as Meg makes them out and James appears to have fallen for another women. But the disappearance of his autobiography is most puzzling of all—did he uncover a secret so damaging that someone was prepared to kill for it? George and Molly must try to fit together the missing pieces of information to reveal who could have wanted James dead . . .