Pooh Bridge: conscience stricken

When Richard Blythe's wife, Rachel, dies from cancer after a protracted illness, he is determined to get away from it all amid the wilds of the countryside, leaving his young twins, his job, his friends and all known responsibilities for a few precious weeks of reflection and healing. However, within days, the world has caught up with him, confronting him with a vulnerable girl whom he finds unconscious and who clearly has more of a story to tell than she is divulging. This unfortunate meeting starts a series of events that unsettle Richard's life to the point where he can no longer anticipate what will happen next or gauge who is on what side. Then he meets the seductive Sophie, who appears to like him but she seems to be working to a different agenda, and one that Richard can only guess at. More importantly and because of his own feelings, his conscience suddenly becomes a controlling factor. 'Pooh Bridge' is a mesmerising murder mystery, seeped in grief, which continuously offers the promise of the beguiling snake that is coiling in readiness to bite, but when it does strike it is not in the direction anticipated.

Nigel Lampard was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army and after thirty-nine years of active service he retired in 1999. Trained as an ammunition and explosives expert, he travelled the world and was appointed an Order of the British Empire for services to his country. As a second career he helped British Forces personnel with their transition to civilian life, and finally retired in 2007, when he and his wife Jane moved to Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. Married for over forty years, they have two sons and four grandchildren. Nigel started writing after a tour in Berlin in the early 1980s - he fell in love with what was then a walled and divided city. After leaving Berlin, the only way he could continue this love was to write about it. By the time he completed the draft for his first novel he was already in love with writing.