Smoke and whispers

'This is one of these novels where you read it, not just to see what happens at the end, but to see what happens on the very next page' BooklistWhen a body is hauled from the River Tyne, Sarah Tucker heads to Newcastle for a closer look.

She identifies the dead woman, but putting a name to the corpse only raises further questions.

Did the woman kill herself? Why was she wearing the jacket a murderer had stolen years before? And what's brought Sarah's former sparring partner Gerard Inchon to the same broken-down hotel where she's staying?

Coincidence is an excuse that soon appears pretty unconvincing.

Sarah can't leave until she's found the answers to her questions, however dangerous they might turn out to be.