A QUARTET OF CRIME NOVELS by Robert Edric
FUNERAL SONG [hardcover]
In this final part of the Song Cycle Quartet, published here for the first time, Hull private detective Leo Rivers is approached by a wealthy property developer. The man's only daughter is being blackmailed by a local drug dealer, to whom she owes money and who possesses compromising photographs of her, and Rivers is employed to deliver the money demanded and to keep the girl away from all that threatens to destroy both her and her father's ambitions in the city. It is soon clear to Rivers, however, that there is considerably more to this transaction than meets the eye, and that he is being used by both men to their own illegal and profitable ends. Following a vicious assault on Rivers and the death of two innocent men, the private detective is drawn into a world of drug-financed gang warfare and police corruption, each side playing him off against the other, until in a final unstoppable explosion of violence and killing, he is lucky to escape with his own life.
CRADLE SONG [trade paperback]
An imprisoned child murderer unexpectedly appeals his conviction. In return for a reduced sentence, he offers to implicate others involved in the crimes who were never caught, provide evidence of police corruption and, most importantly, reveal where the corpses of other long-sought but never found bodies are buried. Distressed at what may come to light, yet desperate to locate the body of his own missing daughter, the father of one of these girls approaches Hull private detective Leo Rivers with a plea for help. Rivers' enquiries stir cold and bitter memories. Long-dead enmities flare suddenly into violence and a succession of new killings. As the investigation continues, it gathers momentum and speeds inexorably to the even greater violence and sadness of its conclusion.
SIREN SONG [trade paperback]
When the luxury yacht Helen Brooks was last seen on is found abandoned amid the marshlands of the Humber Estuary, foul play is suspected. However, in the absence of a body, nothing can be proven, and the owner of the yacht —local ambitious businessman, Simon Fowler—is unprepared to offer any explanation as to what Helen was doing on board. A year later, Hull private investigator Leo Rivers is approached by Helen's mother to investigate both her daughter's disappearance and Fowler's own background. Rivers is drawn through a long, hot summer into a world of human trafficking and governmental corruption at every turn. Each slowly unravelled piece of the mystery moves him further from the vanished girl and into a web of exploitation, greed, temptation, revenge and violence, from which even he is unable to extricate himself without unforeseen and tragic circumstances.
SWAN SONG [trade paperback]
In this third volume of the Song Cycle Quartet, Hull private detective Leo Rivers is at the heart of an inquiry into a series of prostitute-linked killings. Approached by the mother of the chief suspect, Rivers quickly understands that this is anything but an open and shut case. Not only is the suspect not involved, but several hitherto unconsidered and scarcely credible connections link the murders to another, as yet unidentified perpetrator. Heading the investigation is an ambitious, career-minded Chief Superintendent, who will stop at nothing to both make a name for himself and to destroy Rivers in the process. Set against the backdrop of the Humber and the long and violent destruction of Hull's once-cherished fishing industry, Swan Song lays bare a world of corruption, exploitation, ambition and of old hatreds and enmities fanned suddenly into destructive life, from which no one, Rivers included, escapes unharmed.
