After her mother’s suspicious death, Emily needs a break. Can a furtive French affair, a grizzly murder and, finally, unexpected love, be the ultimate convalescence?

‘Ladley's first stand alone novel, full of mystery and intrigue but not at the high tempo of the fantastic Sam Green novels.'
‘Refreshingly different from the current crop of novels with a similar theme …’

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Emily Copeland is a young teacher at an inner city school. And she’s good at it. One Christmas her mother shares a long held secret of a teenage affair with a French fisherman. Months later her mother is killed in a hit and run and Emily’s life is dislodged from its axis.

With the school summer holidays approaching, Emily decides on a cathartic journey to revisit the French seaside village where, all those years ago, her mother enjoyed her summer fling. Clutching a series of old holiday snaps, she sets off with the ambition of closure. However, the Camargue - where the mighty Rhône meets the Mediterranean - holds deep secrets. It’s a lawless place of cowboys and gipsies, of mudflats, lakes and meandering tributaries … and of black bulls and white horses.

Emily’s journey soon ends up being more than just a rehearsal of her mum’s past. As she traces her footsteps, the romantic memories she unearths of a previous summer paint an altogether more sinister picture of the present. And Emily’s trip turns out to be one of enlightenment and of deceit; and of abuse and of greed. Ultimately it’s a story that ends in love … and death.

In praise of Roland Ladley’s Sam Green thriller Series:

‘I feel we have a new author who will make Fleming and Le Carre shift uneasily.'
‘Unique, compelling, surprising.’
‘Sam Green is an intriguing and relatable protagonist and her portrayal as the female lead is refreshingly different.’
‘I have been converted to a raging Sam Green fan!’
‘An astonishing mix that will please fans like me of both Lee Child and Stella Rimington.’