Smoke and Whispers

Oxford private detective Zoe Boehm turns up dead in Newcastle, launching her friend Sarah Tucker into an investigation with several leads - but no one she can trust.

When a body is hauled from the River Tyne, Sarah Tucker heads to Newcastle for a closer look. She identifies the dead woman as private detective Zoe Boehm, but putting a name to the corpse only raises further questions. Did Zoe kill herself, or did one of her old cases come back to haunt her? Why was she wearing the jacket a murderer had stolen years before? And what's brought Sarah's former sparring partner Gerard Inchon to the same broken-down hotel where she's staying? Coincidence is an excuse that soon appears pretty unconvincing. Sarah can't leave until she's found the answers to her questions, however dangerous they might turn out to be.

About the Author

Mick Herron's six Slough House novels have been shortlisted for eight CWA Daggers, winning twice, and shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year three times. The first, Slow Horses, was picked as one of the best twenty spy novels of all time by the Daily Telegraph, while the most recent, Joe Country, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

Mick Herron was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.