Shortlisted for CWA John Creasey Memorial Award 2002.

Philip Dryden is a senior reporter on the Crow, a paper based in Ely in the Cambridgeshire fen district. His life has been in disarray since Laura, his wife, was left in a coma following a bad car crash in which he could have drowned - an old fear from childhood. Now a body is discovered in a block of ice in the boot of a sunken car. The next day a corpse is discovered riding a stone gargoyle on the roof of Ely Cathedral. Forensic evidence links both victims to an event in 1966. Dryden is more involved than he realises, and eventually he faces a ruthless killer. It all makes for an exciting and unusual crime thriller. The atmosphere is brilliantly described.

Jim Kelly is a correspondent for the Financial Times. He lives in Ely with his wife, the writer Midge Gilles, and their young daughter. This is his first novel.