The Haweswater Secret

A DI Tobias Stone Lake District Crime Thriller

Perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Peter Robinson, and Elly Griffiths

A village drowned in 1935. A body hidden for fifty years. And a celebrated author whose career was built on murder.

Unprecedented drought exposes the ruins of Mardale Green, a Lake District village submerged when Haweswater Reservoir was created. When human remains are discovered wrapped in plastic on the floor of the old smithy, DI Tobias Stone faces a race against time—rising waters will soon reclaim the crime scene and all its evidence.

The victim: Elaine Carlton, a librarian who disappeared in 1972 while researching the drowned village. The suspect: Victor Matheson, a celebrated local author whose literary career was built on his fraudulent family connection to Mardale Green—a connection Elaine's research was about to expose.

With DS Amy Hopwood and Dr. Helen Lawson, Stone must navigate a half-century evidence trail before the reservoir reclaims its secrets. Forensic analysis reveals deliberate murder. Literary analysis reveals systematic fabrication. And historical records reveal a truth worth killing to conceal.

Matheson transformed his crime into fiction, processing his guilt through bestselling novels while building a celebrated career on his victim's silence. For fifty years, Mardale's waters kept his secret. But water preserves what earth might reveal—and some truths refuse to stay submerged.

Justice may arrive fifty years late. But in the Lake District, it arrives nonetheless.