Withdrawn

Fourteen years ago, something was hidden inside Penraven Library. Now a death has begun pulling the past back into the light.At sixty-three, librarian Jan Vale has settled back into the rhythms of life in her small Cornish community. Christmas has come and gone, another birthday has been endured, and Moss-a retired working dog with an impressive appetite and very definite opinions-has made himself thoroughly at home in Jan’s life and behind the library desk.Penraven in summer should mean busy pubs, crowded cafés, surfers on the beach and visitors filling the narrow streets. But when a death raises questions that refuse to go away, Jan finds herself drawn into events reaching back fourteen years.Old records point towards Penveor, a development with a troubled history and secrets some people would rather leave buried. A missing man. Altered environmental reports. Money that changed hands. Photographs intended to frighten. And evidence concealed where few people would ever think to look.As Jan begins piecing together fragments of the past, she discovers that almost everyone involved remembers events differently-and some have spent years convincing themselves that silence was the same thing as innocence.With police officer Kevin Hatcher, an old friend who once escaped Cornwall for the Metropolitan Police before returning in search of a quieter life, Jan must separate memory from fact and guilt from murder.Meanwhile, ordinary life stubbornly continues. Books need shelving. Tourists need directions. Eggs are bought from honesty boxes. Travelling vans arrive on their appointed days. Moss expects his walks, attracts treats from half the town and wears a suspiciously unofficial emotional-support jacket that Jan has read the rules carefully enough to defend.But beneath Penraven’s familiar routines lies a more uncomfortable truth.The most dangerous secrets aren’t always kept by monsters. Sometimes they’re kept by ordinary people who made one bad decision, then another-and discovered too late how difficult it is to stop.Atmospheric, character-led and threaded with dry humour, Withdrawn is the second Jan Vale Mystery, returning to the Cornish landscape, close-knit community and quietly formidable librarian introduced in Returned.Some truths were buried. Not all stayed hidden. 6