Showing results by author "Kate High" in All Categories

Sommer in den Lincolnshire Wolds. Als Clarice Beech den Hilferuf ihrer Freundin Louise erhält, kann sie nicht ablehnen: Sie soll sich um eine lebhafte Boxer-Hündin namens Susie kümmern, die Louises Sohn Guy gehört, einem Anwalt, der in einen spektakulären Fall verstrickt ist. Guy ist seit Tagen spurlos verschwunden. Zuletzt wurde er gesehen, wie er in den Wagen eines Unbekannten stieg. Von Anfang an verhält sich Susie merkwürdig. Immer wieder zieht es sie zu einem kleinen Wald hin, in dem sie oft mit ihrem Herrchen spazieren war.

Clarice Beech setzt sich mit Leidenschaft für Tiere ein. Als Walter, der dreibeinige Kater der wohlhabenden Lady Vita Fayrepoynt vom heimischen Anwesen Weatherby Hall verschwindet, macht Clarice sich auf die Suche nach ihm. Sie findet ihn auf dem Heuboden der alten "Galgenscheune", doch bei dem Versuch, ihn zu fangen, stürzt sie ab... und landet direkt auf der Leiche der armen Rose Miller. Zusammen mit Rick Beech, ihrem getrennt lebenden Ehemann, macht Clarice sich auf die Suche nach dem Mörder.

Driving home from a ceramics evening class, Clarice Beech reflects on the absence of one of her students, Colin Compton-Smythe. Later, Emily, Colin's daughter, telephones to say her father has died during routine surgery. Distraught, Emily opens up to Clarice about his wretched childhood and the day five-year-old Colin returned home to discover Avril, his mother, gone. Colin never believed she would have left without him and had been trying to find out more about Avril's disappearance all those years ago.

Summer in the Lincolnshire Wolds and Clarice is rung by her friend Louise, asking whether she can look after Susie, her son's lively Boxer, as 41-year-old Guy has gone missing from the family home. His mother thinks he has been suffering from depression but more worryingly, in his professional life, he had been working on a high-profile case, defending a known criminal. His home life was beset with problems too, which is why his mother has asked Clarice to look after the dog; Charlotte, Guy's wife, just can't cope with her as well as their three daughters.

Clarice Beech has two passions in life: animal rescue and Detective Inspector Rick Beech. She is devoted to the first, but she and Rick have been separated for the past six months - life without him is hard. Clarice shares her other love, for contemporary ceramics, with the charming Lady Vita Fayrepoynt. When Vita's adopted three-legged ginger cat, Walter, disappears from Weatherby Hall, Clarice is called in to find him.