Art of Death
After the mayhem and general all-round madness of 2019, let’s start 2020 in a calmer frame of mind . . . and allow me to introduce you to a new addition to the Constable list. Meet Vince Caine, aka the Veggie Cop, aka . . . the Mindful Detective.
This series is set in the West Country and kicks off at an uber-hip art gallery – The Butcher’s Hook – in Somerset, where a famously narcissistic performance artist is found floating in a tank of formaldehyde at her own private view. Such a bizarre murder merits the attention of a left-field thinker, so the officer leading the investigation, DI Shanti Joyce, is soon banging a path to Vince Caine’s remote eco cabin down in Lyme Regis.
Of course we have a chalk and cheese pairing here, but it’s deftly done here by Laurence, who is one half of a husband-and-wife illustrated children’s books team, and winner of the Carnegie in 2016 for his YA fiction.
Future murders will take Vince and Shanti to other hotspots in the West Country – Glastonbury, Stonehenge, and the Eden Project down in Cornwall. So join the series from the start and be prepared to fall in love with an unlikely yet irresistible police pairing!
Krystyna Green
'Quirky, compelling and thoroughly enjoyable' Kate Ellis
'A super start to the series' Frances Brody
'An entertaining murder mystery . . . witty' L C Tyler
Buddhism, love, art and murder - welcome to the world of the Mindful Detective
When a famously narcissistic performance artist is found floating in a tank of formaldehyde at her own private view, suspicion falls on those closest to her . . .
Leading the murder investigation is DI Shanti Joyce, recently transferred from London to Yeovil following the collapse of her marriage and a case that went wrong. She soon concludes that the mystery requires left-field thinking, and when a colleague at the station suggests Vince Caine, aka the Mindful Detective, Shanti tracks him down to his remote cabin on the Undercliff at Lyme Regis.
The pair delve into the artist's Bohemian circle and discover a hotbed of resentment and jealousy stretching all the way back to her scandalous art school days in Falmouth. But as they soon realise, the murderer is both canny and elusive - someone with a complex, warped motive who will do anything to point them elsewhere.
Has Shanti made the wrong decision enlisting the unconventional and enigmatic Caine? Can the unlikely mix of her down-to-earth pragmatism and his otherworldly intuition really prove a winning combination?
Or will a killer escape justice and leave Shanti's reputation in tatters?
