The master of the classic British detective story -- the "modern-day version of Agatha Christie" (Booklist) -- returns with a stunning whodunit in her acclaimed series. Mystery fans will thrill as Inspector Luke Thanet unravels the intricate events leading up to the drowning of the wife of a renowned barrister.

When Thanet gets a late-night call, he fears the worst. His daughter Bridget has been suffering complications with her pregnancy. But it's only a call to inform him that Ralph Mintaur, a respected figure in courtrooms around Kent, has reported his wife missing while in the middle of an evening of entertaining. When Victoria Mintaur's body is discovered the next morning at the bottom of the well in the Mintaurs' garden, Thanet finds that almost all of the guests present at the house that evening had reason to want her dead. So with Detective Sergeant Mike Lineham at his side, he sifts through the complex webs of past and present in search of the truth.

Tantalizing and satisfying, meticulously plotted and vivid, Dead and Gone is another supreme example of Dorothy Simpson writing at the top of her game.