Chimera's Mask

Chimera, [ Ky-Merr-Uh ] noun.

• Something that is hoped for but illusory

Embittered former police detective Liz Connelly and recently unseated Member of Parliament Jack Emerson, both need a fresh start. The two join forces as private investigators, but nothing prepares them for their first client, the plain-spoken and often tactless widow Elsie Cairns. She is desperate to trace her missing adult son Miles who disappeared, seemingly without explanation, while walking home late one night in a run down former mining town in the north-east of England.

Liz and Jack take on the case, but soon stumble upon secrets festering behind respectable masks of convenience. As a ruinous conspiracy threatens to engulf the entire town, the partners are drawn into an increasingly intriguing and deadly mystery - one they have no hope of solving without the help of unsettling reminders from Liz's professional past.

Drawing on characters from the popular Moorton Community series and laced with dark humour, Chimera's Mask sees the introduction of the Moorton Detective Agency as its fractious members struggle to unite as a team.

The Moorton Community novels are a series of stand-alone, but interlinked, contemporary stories focusing on the life and times of recurrent characters living in the former mining community of Moorton in the north-east of England.