The Skeleton Man

The death of Jimmy Neate marked the end of any campaign to reclaim Jude’s Ferry as a living village. The range at Whittlesea is now in use throughout the year, training soldiers for active service in the Middle East. Joint operations with the US army are a regular feature of these exercises. The church has suffered no more wayward shells but dry rot has attacked the roof beams and a storm severely damaged the louvres surrounding the bell chamber. The church has been deconsecrated. There was no last service.

The hunt for Philip Dryden after his disappearance from the hide at Wicken Fen, and the story he had to tell once he’d walked to safety out of Jude’s Ferry two days later, made national news. But soon the media circus had rolled on and he returned to The Crow’s diet of petty crime and parish pump. But not all has remained the same: he now has a more flexible contract with the paper so that he can sometimes be with his wife during rehearsals and filming. Laura’s speech has improved remarkably, although her doctors still consider a full recovery unlikely. She has, however, mastered crutches and the wheelchair has been stowed below decks.

Ruth Lisle has written a book based on her mother’s observations of life in Jude’s Ferry. It has, as yet, failed to attract a publisher.

The Peyton Society of Pittsburgh paid $360,000 for the transfer and restoration of the family tomb to St John’s Church, Boston, Lincs. An action for compensation against the MoD was settled out of court for a sum understood to be in the region of £60,000.

Humph enjoyed Christmas in the Faroe Islands and is now learning Sami, having booked Christmas 2008 in Lapland.

Dryden has built Boudicca a wooden kennel on the bank beside PK 129.

DI Peter Shaw sits beside his sea rod on the beach at Old Hunstanton, waiting for his next case.

If you enjoyed The Skeleton Man, look out for

DEATH WORE WHITE

by Jim Kelly

(Published in Penguin paperback in January 2009)

Introducing a police partnership as memorable as Morse and Lewis, as delightfully mismatched as Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler in Life on Mars…

In the middle of a heavy snowstorm, eight cars stand on a lonely Norfolk coast road, as night draws in. A fallen pine tree stops them from going forward, the snowbound road prevents them going back.

Two hours later no car has moved – but one driver has met a violent end. Except no one has had the means or the opportunity to commit the murder, and there are no incriminating footprints in the snow.

For Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant Valentine it is an extremely puzzling case – made all the more disturbing by the distorted corpse that washed up on the beach only hours earlier. A man who appears to have died from a human bite mark on his arm…

Read on for a taster…

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