Author(s): Michael Koryta

Crime Fiction

Some time after midnight, on a moonless October night one of the men I least liked in the world was murdered in a field near Bedford, just south of the city The detectives went looking for suspects - people whose histories with Jefferson were adversarial and hostile. At the top of that list, they found me . . . Private investigator, Lincoln Perry, was once a rising star in the police force. His career as a cop came to a brutal halt after he assaulted prominent attorney, Alex Jefferson - retribution for Jefferson's affair with Perry's fiancee. Now Jefferson is dead, the victim of a brutal murder. Sure Perry is innocent, Jefferson's widow calls upon him for a favour he shouldn't accept but can't turn down: to find Jefferson's estranged son, partial beneficiary of the dead man's fortune. The case is simple enough, a routine 'search and locate', and there's plenty of money for the work. The encounter with the son should be simple too, a brief exchange of information and maybe an empty condolence before Perry heads home in his truck. Instead, Perry finds himself loaded into a police car headed for jail while Jefferson's son is zipped into a body bag . . . And that's only the beginning of Perry's troubles! A Welcome Grave explores the lengths to which a desperate man is forced to go to clear his name and solve a crime. Fast-paced and beautifully written, it confirms Michael Koryta's status as one of the top new crime writers.