I think I paid the penalty here of starting with #30 in a series. I was new to the characters and the relationships between them, and I had a hard time in particular with building a picture of ex-Chief Constable (Sir) Robert Skinner. He has started a new career as the director of a media company, has a family of varying ages, a wife who is the local pathologist, and still has a finger in many pies. He is held in high regard by the community and is immediately recognisable by members of the public.

The Bob Skinner series has produced 32 books since 1993 so I can only imagine the amount of background material that I have missed out on. The cold case in this book pre-dates Skinner's own career and new implicates the two men whom he regarded in high esteem and who were in fact his mentors. The man charged with killing the priest Matthew Ampersand actually took his own life in gaol but his family always regarded him as guilty. Skinner comes into the case as an investigator and tracks down both members of the dead man's family and members of the family of the convicted man. When the journalist who initiates the investigation first of all goes missing and then is found dead, the cold case coincides with the new one, and more resources are thrown at it, Skinner becomes the mentor of the senior policemen involved, and at the same time tries to protect the reputations of his own former members.

My rating probably reflects my lack of knowledge of the series rather than any shortcomings in the plot, but I was left wondering about the credibility of the scenario. ( )