Sleepy Suffolk wakes up to the news that a man has been found hanging in a reclamation yard near Bury St Edmunds. Within days, a bronze statue is stolen, and a broken automaton with a singing bird mechanism arouses suspicion.
Can there be a connection? It becomes increasingly clear that there is, as the action quickly spreads from Thorpe Morieux through to Lavenham and Woodbridge. Chrissie, Nick, and Matt, friends since a carpentry course at Stowmarket's Utterly Academy, find themselves caught up with a network dealing in stolen metal and scrap.
Add a darkly brooding young man, a rundown pizza delivery service, a spooky remote car wrecking yard, DI Clive Merry, and you have another fast witty and fast paced narrative from Pauline Manders. Her quirky main characters, previously encountered in Utterly Explosive, Utterly Fuelled and Utterly Rafted, fly by the seat of their pants through a plot filled with twists, deceit, and bluff as the stakes are raised.
British English with a little light swearing. A British cozy crime mystery thriller suspense with strong threads of friendship.
