Man From the River

A glorious July morning in a drowsy Essex market town promises nothing but green fields, river mist, and idle days at a comfortable old inn. Then a body surfaces in the slow brown water-a quiet, unhappy clerk who had every reason to despair and no obvious reason to die where he did.

What begins as a melancholy accident soon refuses to stay tidy. Train times do not add up; an alibi rests on a single unwitnessed hour; and the respectable households along the riverbank prove to be guarding more than their garden walls. Beneath the talk of weather and dividends runs a current of debt, ambition, and old resentment.

Summoned from Scotland Yard for a restful holiday, a patient, unshowy detective instead finds himself sifting timetables and half-truths in a village where everyone is charming and no one is entirely honest. The river gave up one secret. It is hiding several more.