The Bones Beneath the Bramble

When the bones of a young woman are dug up in a farmhouse garden, P.C. Derek Martin discovers a link between her death and pre-War English fascism. He is, however, distracted not just by the chance of a promotion to CID, which would uproot him and his wife Mary from their idyllic village life but also by an armed robbery.

Meanwhile the huge but child-like Ivor, home on leave from his psychiatric hospital, becomes convinced that Mary is ‘holy’ and that Derek is the anti-Christ.

For a village copper, driven on by his famous niggles, it is almost too much to handle.