Darkness & Light A Frank Elder Mystery [Paperback]

Former cop Frank Elder is drawn out of retirement when his ex-wife asks him to look into the disappearance of her friend Jennies sister Claire in Nottingham. Elder reluctantly returns to the city where his family disintegrated.

Elder uncovers sexual secrets of Claires that take Jennie by surprise. But when Claire is found dead at homeunmarked and carefully dressedit is Elder who is surprised by the similarities to an old case. To solve this riddle, Elder will have to repartner with Detective Inspector Maureen Prior and delve into several suspects traumatic histories.

In a case in which neither memories, confessions, nor instincts can be trusted, Elder struggles with the weight of the past and Harvey delivers another psychologically trenchant page-turner.

PRAISE FOR DARKNESS & LIGHT

Its such a joy to kick back and savor the latest effort by one of the true masters of the genre . . . Copper Frank Elder . . . proves to be an affecting and memorable protagonist once more. THE BALTIMORE SUN



Emotionally acute, often heartbreaking. THE SEATTLE TIMES

Chapter 1
1965
BEHIND HIS SPECTACLES, THE BOYS EYES WERE LIKE bevelled glass.
 
Alice Silverman turned in her chair and adjusted the window blind so that the late summer light fell muted into the room. All the surfaces the pale wood table, the backs and arms of both chairs, the long low cabinet of shallow drawers hummed with a shimmer of honeyed dust. Each drawer in the cabinet was marked clearly with the name of the child to whom it belonged; some, those of the youngest, had an animal brightly painted beside the handle, a dolphin, a diplodocus, a brown bear with outsize feet and a big red bow at its neck.
Close to Alices slim wrist rested the unlined pad on which, occasionally, she noted down words or phrases in a neat hand, or otherwise doodled, crosshatching dark corners that might be clouds or trees. Between herself and the bols.