Clare Curzon sets her crimes in the leafy Thames Valley, a lovely enough part of old England where one of the old villages seem right out of a nineteenth-century painting. But, people are the same mix of good and bad whatever scenery surrounds them, and Superintendent Mike Yeadings has as much human dissolution to deal with as if he policed the London streets. Searching for a killer in The Body of a Woman, the superintendent and his sergeants, Beaumont...

Curzon blends solid police work with skillfully drawn minor characters whose actions, often unintentionally, complicate the investigation--"Publishers Weekly."

Two strangers, a research microbiologist and a commuter-line driver, both once fired by ambition but now disillusioned, encounter each other at a major crossroads in their lives. In a vicious and mistaken attack, one becomes a hapless victim of the other's desperation. As the Thames Valley Serious Crimes Squad, headed by Mike Yeadings, investigates the disappearance of one of the men, grim secrets of national importance emerge. Involvement spreads...