Showing results for "Vanda Symon" in Women Sleuths

Mataura is a small town in rural New Zealand where, apart from the odd tractor theft, nothing very interesting happens. But when the body of a young mother is found washed up on the banks of the Mataura River, the small rural community is rocked by her tragic suicide. All is not what it seems, however. Sam Shephard, sole-charge police constable in the town, soon discovers the death was no suicide and has to face the realisation that there is a killer in town. To complicate the situation, the murdered woman was the wife of Sam's former lover.

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

DC Sam Shephard is stationed in Dunedin CIB, a newbie at the bottom of the pecking order. When a young university student is found battered to death and floating in the Leith, she is pushed to one side by her boss and only given grunt work. Despite this, it is Sam who discovers that there has been a string of unsolved murders on the South Island, and that each has occurred while a travelling circus was in town - the same circus that is presently in Dunedin.

On her first day back from maternity leave, Detective Sam Shephard is thrown straight into a cold-case investigation - the unsolved murder of a highly respected Anglican priest in Dunedin. The case has been a thorn in the side of the police hierarchy, and for her boss it's personal. With all the witness testimony painting a picture of a dedicated church and family man, what possible motive could there have been for his murder?

Anarchy hits Dunedin when a cargo ship runs aground on Aramoana Beach amid a crowd of onlookers. One of them discovers a skull in the sand while desperate scavengers fight each other for the best of the bounty. Waking up to the chaos and hurrying outside to give the police a hand, Detective Constable Sam Shephard cops a wallop before her attacker is himself beaten senseless - and she saves his life in the ambulance. Returning to work, she is sent to help recover a body submerged in the water, the autopsy revealing that this was no accidental drowning but a lethal assault.