Book description
Anne Cossey has a recurring dream of an avenue that reminds her of
Hobbema's painting of The Avenue at Middelharnis. Beyond that she knows
nothing of the place, except that it terrifies her. There is a great
deal in her past that she cannot remember. Who is her mother? Who was
her father? Who is she? Then, while she is on honeymoon in Spain, her
mother 'commits suicide' in a manner that Anne is the first to recognize
as murder. From then on the knots begin to tighten, for Anne is on the
civilian payroll of Chief Superintendent Kenworthy, now in his closing
years at the Yard, and her husband is a detective-sergeant in the squad
of Kenworthy's old winger, Shiner Wright. She unearths various files in
the archives that might refer to her mother's elusive past, but then
finds herself one chilly dawn abducted under anaesthetic and coming to
in the very avenue of her nightmare. The action grows increasingly
sinister, giving Kenworthy one of his most complex cases to date - and
John Buxton Hilton the opportunity to introduce a few more to his
gallery of memorable characters, including Swannee Foster, a criminal
individualist, whom many at the Yard have agreed not to harness. John
Buxton Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war
service in the army he became an Inspector of schools, before retiring
in 1970 to take up full-time writing. Hilton wrote two books on language
teaching as well as being a prolific crime writer - his works include
the Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt
series, as well as the Inspector Mosley series as John Greenwood.
