Along “The Coffin Trail”

Take a place, both beautiful and so remote that the dead had to be carried over the mountains by pack animals. Add the ritualistic killing a young woman and a village full of secrets and suspects and you have the plot of the first of Martin Edwards’ The Lake District Mysteries.
“The Coffin Trail” finds Daniel Kind, a television personality best known for using deductive reasoning to solve historical mysteries, buying Tarn cottage in the Lake District in an effort to escape to a new life. The cottage was once the home to Barrie Gilpin, a young sufferer of Asperger’s syndrome, who fell to his death while under suspicion for the gory murder of a young woman on a local landmark, the Sacrifice Stone. Daniel’s late father was the chief investigator on the case and neither he or Daniel were ever satisfied with the findings.
Daniel and his girlfriend, Miranda, take their concerns to DCI Hannah Scarlett and her squad in an effort to open this cold case. The renewed inquiry stirs up the residents of the village of Brackdale who have skeletons to hide, and each new clue leads to more questions. Resentment turns toward Daniel and Miranda from the village, and a murderer decides that it’s time to end their investigations before they stumble on any answers.