DI Kate Simms

In Everyone Lies by A. D. Garrett, DCI Kate Simms is on the fast track to nowhere. Five years ago she helped a colleague when she shouldn't have, and she's been clawing her way back from a demotion ever since.

Professor Nick Fennimore is a successful gambler, crime scene officer, chemistry graduate, toxicology specialist and onetime scientific advisor to the National Crime Faculty. He is the best there is, but ever since his wife and daughter disappeared he's been hiding away in Scotland, working as a forensics lecturer.

In Manchester, drug addicts are turning up dead, and Simms' superior is only too pleased to hand the problem to her. Then a celebrity dies, and the media gets interested. Another overdose victim shows up, but this time the woman has been systematically beaten beyond identification. The evidence doesn't add up; Simms' superiors seem to be obstructing her investigation; everyone lies; and the one person she can't afford to associate with is the one man who can help: Fennimore.

A. D. Garrett is the pseudonym for the writing collaboration of prize-winning thriller writer Margaret Murphy and forensic scientist Professor Dave Barclay. Margaret Murphy is the author of nine psychological thrillers. She lectures on writing and is a former Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow. Professor Barclay is a world-renowned forensics expert and senior lecturer in forensic science at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Everyone Lies is their first collaboration.