When the ashes burn - Phil Lovesey

Chilling, truly horrifying psychological thriller from a highly talented new young British novelist: 'A name to watch' - Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday

Local police thought George Picket was little more than a serial complainer. But as Chairman of the Chelmsford Allotment Society, the summer's run-in with a wayward group of youths had begun to reach ever more serious heights. Then one late October evening a single match lights a trail of suburban death and destruction, whose dreadful hidden consequences reach far beyond the innocent allotment plots.

Freelance reporter Jack Latimer takes up Picket's case, completely unaware of the millennial nightmare the Chairman's tale will unearth. A severed head, a badly bungled drugs deal, a dead hangman's grandson and the menace of juvenile crime are jsut some of the elements Jack will encounter in reporting a story which threatens not only to destroy his career - but his very life too.

For in uncovering the full horrors of the drop - Jack Latimer has a long way to fall.