THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW DRESS

In 1930, DCI Henry Johnstone is flummoxed by a murder whose chief suspect is already dead.

Few tears fell when Brady Brewer was hanged for the murder of Sarah Downham. Although he swore that he truly loved her, his brutal record of crimes against women told otherwise, not least in the opinion of Johnstone, who had seen him in action during the war. But when the body of a second young woman, Penelope Soper, is found dumped on a country road not far from the place where the first body was discovered, the local police must face the possibility that Sarah’s killer is still at large. So as little as he likes getting sent to the border between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and sad as he is that this case from the back of beyond will likely be his last with Mickey Hitchens, the faithful sergeant who’s long overdue for promotion, Johnstone decides that the only way to solve Penelope’s murder is to reinvestigate Sarah’s. He faces stiff opposition from Inspector Walker, the copper who built the case against Brady; from Elizabeth, Brady’s long-suffering sister; and from Sarah’s wealthy and powerful family. But the oddest of clues—a handmade yellow dress, which witnesses saw Sarah wearing the night she disappeared and is now missing from the evidence box—persuades him that there’s more to Sarah’s murder than a whirlwind romance gone bad.

A fitting swan song for Adams’ dynamic duo.