Archaeologist Neil Watson is busy moving graves from one part of a churchyard to another in return for the opportunity of conducting an excavation to see if there was an earlier church on the site. One of the coffins from the early nineteenth century disintegrates revealing two skeletons. Neil has his work cut out to discover who the second skeleton belonged to and naturally his researches provide useful information for his friend Wesley Peterson in his investigations of current and not so current crimes.
Wesley and his boss, Gerry, are kept busy trying to find a criminal nicknamed The Barber who masquerades as a taxi driver and cuts off the hair of his female passengers. Then the victim of a kidnapping thirty years ago apparently returns from the dead and a young pop singer is kidnapped and held for ransom.
Plenty of crimes for Wesley to get his teeth into and fortunately his wife, Pam, is being very understanding about his frequent absences from home. I enjoyed this complex mystery with its many twists and turns both modern and historical. The characters are well drawn especially the families of the modern kidnap victim and the one from thirty years ago.
It is good to see Gerry's new relationship developing - even if he doesn't want to tell his daughter about it. This series can be read out of order but it is good to be able to follow the way the regular characters develop if the series is read in order of publication.
