The Reckoning

 On a quiet afternoon in 1947, retired bank manager Oswald Gibson is shot in the head while fishing. In Scotland, a respectable family doctor is killed in the same manner—and with the same gun. What is the connection? Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Billy Styles and local detective Vic Chivers are baffled until a letter from Gibson is discovered that may shed some light on the case—a letter concerning former Scotland Yard detective John Madden.  Despite Madden’s legendary memory, he has no recollection of meeting Gibson or any idea what their relationship might have been. Madden is happily retired from police work, but agrees to help his former protege Styles, and the clues they uncover only deepen the mystery. When a third man is killed in a similar fashion, Madden and Styles find themselves in a race against time to find the killer before another man ends up dead.

 

A tense, intricately plotted mystery, this is the fourth title in the critically acclaimed and much loved John Madden series.

RENNIE AIRTH was born in South Africa and worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters before becoming a novelist. He is the author of two other John Madden mysteries, River of Darkness —a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel and a Macavity Award for Best Mystery, and a New York Times Notable Book—and The Blood-Dimmed Tide.  Rennie lives in Italy.