Singing the sadness - Reginald Hill

'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times

Joe Sixsmith is going west, though only as far the Llanffugiol Choral Festival in Wales. But his plans are interrupted when they happen upon a burning house with a mysterious woman trapped inside.

Joe risks life and limb to rescue the woman, only to be roped in to the investigation by the police officer in charge. Suddenly surrounded by a bevy of suspicious characters, he soon realizes that this case is much more than just arson.

Aided by little more than his acute instinct for truth, Joe moves forward over the space of a single weekend to uncover crimes which have been buried for years.