The Mouldwarp Prophecy

Who would want to murder Jo Eccleston – and why? Over the past few years, the celebrated BBC newscaster had acquired a fiercely loyal following with her on-site reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. She was fearless, brainy, beautiful, and in real life had abandoned many lovers in her wake.

Brad Moody, chief constable of the Thames Police Force, hears of Jo’s death on a television broadcast as he is having breakfast in a little café located in his home base of Gap, a village of ideal beauty an hour west of London. As chance would have it, Gap, Jo’s childhood home, was where they met, fell in love, and parted when Jo threw Brad over to marry Sir Reeve Winfield, a wealthy businessman of questionable integrity.

Brad needs a trusted friend to confide in – Chief Detective Inspector Mick Chandra of Scotland Yard, where the two had met as neophyte cops. Catching up in a local pub in Gap, Brad confesses to Mick that Jo was pregnant at the time she left him. Whose baby it was he could only guess since Jo was a “good time, love ‘em and leave ‘em” kind of woman.

So begins the convoluted case of Jo’s murder. Mick, along with his brilliant partner, Detective Inspector Elizabeth Chang, are assigned the case that grows more arcane and complicated even as the two police officers struggle to solve it. While still in Gap, Brad insists that Mick meet Jo’s mother, the redoubtable Louise Eccleston, at the local family estate, Hedgerow Manor. Louise proves to be both proud and appalled by her late newscaster daughter: proud of her fame, appalled by her indiscriminant private life. “Why couldn’t she have turned out to be a good girl as I did?” Louise laments.

As the two detectives delve into the case, they discover that Jo had also indulged in long-term affairs with two additional prominent men: Jon Townsend, a former member of the England’s Lib Dem party, who plans for form his own populist party that he is convinced will become a major “player” in the House of Commons. In addition to Townsend is the popular TV heart throb actor, Nigel Roxbury, who freely admits to Elizabeth that he passionately loved Jo despite the fact that he is married. As for Winfield, he dismisses Jo as a pesky bump in his journey to finding a more compliant, younger woman, while Townsend hotly denies having had an affair with Jo at all.

Three former lovers, three possible suspects – four counting Brad Moody.

Yet the key to the real Jo lies with a small child locked away in a facility outside of London that treats autistic children — eight-year-old Tamara, who informs Elizabeth and Mick that “she doesn’t come here to see me anymore.” Who is she?

The story revolves around a lively cast of characters including Mick’s brilliant American-born concert-pianist wife Jessica Beaumont; his best friend and occasional undercover aide, Jamie Geller, another American ex-pat; and Jo’s hitherto unknown half-sister, Leah, who in the end comes to Tamara’s rescue.

And what is the Mouldwarp Prophecy? You’ll have to read to book to understand this monster’s chilling tale.