'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

When celebrated British violinist Arthur Barrington is found dead in his Vienna hotel room, a room he was sharing with his own father, the Austrian police are left scrambling. Was it an accident? Did he somehow take his own life? Or did someone kill him?

With Arthur being a British citizen, and not much to go on, the Austrian police call in the help of DCI Sandy McFarlane from the Foreign Office, to help them investigate this young man's death. As Sandy digs deeper, the investigation takes a dark turn, leading him not only through the streets of Vienna but also back to his home turf, and the quaint country lanes of Stamford, England.

Will he be able to patch together this twisted case? Or will this be the one that finally stumps the infamous detective?

Former UK Investigator Russell Wate delivers a fond farewell to Sandy and his colleagues in this authentic and intricate final instalment of the DCI McFarlane series.

Russell Wate is a retired senior homicide detective, with over 100 major crime enquiries under his belt, from international kidnappings to large-scale paedophile investigations. One of his most high-profile cases was that of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002. Russell subsequently received the Queen's Police Medal for his work as a detective, and now uses his experiences to influence his writing.