‘The Body in the Lighthouse’ by Kate Hardy

Published by Storm Publishing,
7 October 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80508751-9 (PB)

Georgina Drake is 53 today. It is also the fifty-third anniversary of her friend Doris’s death. Georgina sighed, even her springer spaniel Bert is looking at her mournfully. Georgina really missed hearing from Doris, and it had been a long time since she last heard her voice. She sighed again and then headed back to Rockery Farm, her home.  The arrival of her friend DI Colin Bradshaw together with her favourite flowers restored her spirit. Then Colin drove her to meet with her closest friends in the village, Sybbie, Francesca and Jodie, to celebrate her birthday. 

As the group toasted Georgie Happy Birthday and she blew out the candles, she said that she had a commission tomorrow in Summerstrand, photographing the lighthouse and the man who was renovating it. Jodie said, ‘I don’t think that you will enjoy your photo session very much’. ‘Why not,’ said Georgie’?  Well, you know Vicky Evans who teaches at Wenborough Primary School and whose little boy Harry is my son’s best friend. Well, the guy renovating the lighthouse is Eliot Manson, her ex-husband, and he is not a nice man. Also, one of my clients Tara, who is my best friend’s sister, has moved in with him. Which means I am sort of working for him. 

Georgina learns that when Manson’s discovered that Sally and her husband Ben were going to buy the lighthouse he gazumped her. Manson is now barred from the Feathers, their pub. ‘Why’ asked Georgie does Sally want the lighthouse. She’s the village part-time GP and runs a pub?’. Her Dad used to be the lighthouse keeper in the 1960s and 1970s said Jodie, and I think Sally wants to turn it into a museum. 

The next morning, Georgina headed for Summerstrand dressed for work in smart black trousers a black sweater and good trainers. There was a massive sign for Manson’s new development. Manson’s Range Rover was parked outside. She knocked a couple of times but there was no reply. She tried the handle, but it was locked. She then tried his phone, but it went straight too voice mail. So, then she telephoned Manson Developments and spoke to Phoebe, his PA. She said she would bring over a set of spare keys. As they waited, Bert, trotted across the flat area, and started to scrape the sandy area.  And Georgie heard a voice in her hearing aids, she hadn’t heard in a long time. It was Doris. ‘Georgie, I think we need to talk’……. 

Gaining access to the lighthouse they find Eliot Manson had clearly been dead for a while. The police suspect a carbon monoxide leak, but to Georgina’s professional eye, something about the scene looks too staged to be an accident. 

And as if that wasn’t enough for one morning, Bert digs up human remains buried near the lighthouse. Could these decades-old bones be connected to Manson’s death?  He certainly had no shortage of enemies.  But then there is a second murder. A totally unexpected one for someone who is much liked. How does that link in? 

Full of twists, turns, and surprises. Not to be missed. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer; Lizzie Sirett 

Kate Hardy as written for as long as she can remember; it started with stories about ponies and dogs, moved into ghosts and history, and then into local history and romance. She's won three Romantic Novelists' Association awards for her romantic fiction - and is thoroughly enjoying her new life of crime! She lives in Norwich with her husband, two grown-up children, two spaniels and too many books to count. When she's not writing or researching, she'll be out at a gig or the theatre, at ballet class, doing cross-stitch, taking photographs of the sunrise while persuading the spaniels to stay still for one second, fossicking around on a beach or in archives, or exploring ancient buildings. She loves learning new things, which is why you'll always discover something different in a Kate Hardy book. Oh - and, like her heroine Georgina Drake, Kate's deaf but doesn't let it hold her back in any way.