Bernard O'Keeffe

On the morning after Boat Race Day, a man’s body is found in a nature reserve beside the Thames. He has been viciously stabbed, his tongue cut out, and an Oxford college scarf stuffed in his mouth. The body is identified as that of Nick Bellamy, last seen at the charity quiz organised by his Oxford contemporary, the popular newsreader Melissa Matthews. Enter DI Garibaldi, whose first task is to look into Bellamy’s contemporaries from Balfour College. In particular, the surprise ‘final round’ of questions at this year’s charity quiz in which guests were invited to guess whether allegations about Melissa Matthews and her Oxford friends are true. These allegations range from plagiarism and shoplifting to sextortion and murder.

The victim has spent the summer working in Italy for the wealthy Rivetti family, who appear have something to hide, as too do his bosses at the high-end Focus Tutorial Agency. And, why are his old university friends, who he’d been partying with the night before, quite so reticent when questioned? Enter D I Garibaldi, the Met’s only non-driving, country music loving detective. His first step, to unravel the complex workings of the private tuition company, the Focus Agency. Cosy Crime at its finest.

Gentle humour, oodles of clues perfect comfort reading. – The Times. Terrific. – Robert Elm, BBC Radio London. Ingenious. – Daily Mail. When the body of Alex Ballantyne is found in Barnes Pond the police are baffled. Who could want to kill the newly retired teacher? Investigations bring them to St Jude s, the prestigious private school where Ballantyne taught, and to the discovery that Ballantyne had been blackmailing several of his colleagues. Sex. Money. Drugs. It seems that Ballantyne knew all about his victims secrets, and they were prepared to pay to buy his silence. Is one of the St Jude s staff the killer? And, if so, which one? DI Moriarty s on the case and he s soon discovering that nothing is quite as it seems. So runs the blurb of Schooled in Murder , a crime novel written by Ben Joseph, who is found dead in Barnes Pond the morning after giving a talk as part of the Barnes Book Festival. DI Garibaldi and his team are shocked to discover that the writer has been killed in exactly the same place, and in exactly the same way, as the victim in Schooled in Murder . When they look at the novel they see more connections with real life. Ben Joseph is the pseudonym of Liam Allerton who, like the victim in his novel, is a retired teacher. And he taught at St Mark s, a school very similar to St Jude s, the school in his novel. But is that where the similarities end? How much of Allerton s own life, and the lives of those he knew, had he put into his novel? And could the clue to the killer s identity lie in its pages.

A first-class mystery Bernard O Keeffe is on a roll to the big time. – The Daily Mail. Perfect comfort reading. – The Times. An enthralling mix of mystery and murder. – The Mail on Sunday. Behind every mask lies a killer truth. Mick Jagger. Bob Dylan. Paul McCartney. David Bowie. Debbie Harry. They re icons. Legends. And together they form the ultimate supergroup – The Okay Boomers. It s quite some band and it s quite incredible to see them playing the Bull s Head in Barnes on a Sunday night. But all is not as it seems. Hiding behind lifelike masks are five local celebrities. They re keen to keep their identities secret, but they are all unmasked when a man is found dead in the lead singer s garden the morning after their post-gig party. Who is the victim? Why was he wearing the lead singer s Mick Jagger mask? And why have all the other masks disappeared? Enter DI Garibaldi, the Met s literary, country-music loving, non-driving detective. As he investigates the five members of The Okay Boomers a fading rom-com heartthrob, a high-profile comedian, a controversial TV pundit, a popular poet, and a national treasure one thing becomes clear: behind every mask lies a killer truth.

‘A first class mystery Bernard O Keeffe is on a roll to the big time.’ – Daily Mail. ‘Perfect comfort reading.’ – The Times. ‘An enthralling mix of mystery and murder.’ – Mail on Sunday. ‘Cosy yet cleverly menacing, this fifth DI Garibaldi novel delivers classic whodunnit pleasures with a nostalgic twist, proving once again that even the most genteel London enclaves can harbour lethal grudges and long-buried secrets.’ – Lisa Howells, Heat Crime Monthly. What goes around comes around. Every summer four friends gather at Barnes Fair to ride the carousel in memory of Esther, the school friend they lost in a car crash they were all involved in as teenagers. This year, the morning after the fair, one of those friends, Shelley Gregory, is found murdered on that very carousel. DI Garibaldi has questions to ask. Who killed Shelley, and why there? Is her death linked to the tragedy the friends commemorate each year, or do the answers lie closer to home in the quiet Thameside village of Barnes, where Shelley was well known but not always well liked? As Garibaldi pieces together the events of that summer night, he uncovers dark undercurrents beneath Barnes s genteel surface and begins to see the truth: what goes around comes around when you ride the carousel of time.