A Walk with the Dead

If I'd stopped to talk to her, would she still be alive?

As DCI Monika Paniatowski makes her escape from the wedding reception she never wanted to attend, she is vaguely uneasy about not having made the effort to talk to the unhappy girl in the pink flounced dress.

Then the girl's body is discovered in the corporation park, and Monika feels a heavy weight of guilt descending on her. It could have been Louisa, she tells herself - it could have been her own daughter.

She throws herself into the investigation, aware that both the chief constable (her former lover) and Colin Beresford (her right-hand man) feel she is too emotionally involved to be in charge.

And while she desperately struggles to find a lead - or even a motive for the murder ~ the killer is already preparing to strike again.