Tempest and Amanda are still in France working on the Yeti case, so when a police call comes in about an ogre under a bridge in a nearby park, Jane knows exactly what to do. She rushes to the scene with bacon sandwich in hand and promises of cake, because Arthur, the neighborhood eccentric, is once again entertaining himself by scaring the wits out of park visitors, and she has to get to him ahead of the coppers to prevent his arrest.

The next morning, however, Jane is stunned to answer a call from PC Jan Van Doorn on behalf of Detective Inspector Quinn, Amanda’s nemesis, seeking help with the Swamp Monster murders. They began three years earlier when a man drowned in Biddenden Lake — the same park Arthur patrols — while camping with his girlfriend, who was considered the prime suspect in his death, but charges were eventually dismissed for lack of evidence. However, two bodies have recently popped up, both officers involved in the original case, and Quinn is at his wit’s end. “What do I want from Tempest Michaels?” he asks Jane. “He specializes in weird. This is weird.”

The attractive Van Doorn is appointed police liaison for the case, and Jane looks forward to working the case with him. What she doesn’t anticipate, though, is her boyfriend Simon’s petty jealousy about her career replacing him as the center of her attention. When she leaves him in bed on Saturday morning to work on the Swamp Monster case, she meets a harried young woman haunted by what she thinks is a waking dream: an older man singing “Mr. Sandman” from a chair near her bed. Once again, Jane accepts the case, confident in her ability to handle both in the absence of Temple and Amanda.

Like the police, Jane finds herself at loose ends with the Swamp Monster case — the girlfriend, Jennifer Lasseter, offers no new insights, and nothing other than their profession and the case linked the two recent victims. Surprisingly, though, in steps Arthur, in possession of unanticipated assets, to help his favorite detective link seemingly unrelated incidents.

But who engineered that chilling vinyl delivery to Blue Moon headquarters?

From a vampire-wannabe to superb solo sleuther, Jane Butterworth has become a force to be reckoned with, as Steve Higgs delivers another spine-tingling adventure from Blue Moon Investigations.