FATHOM A Donaldson-Gilks Mystery Jacqui BLACK Mystery Publications Limited (2021)

A fatal accident, a hastily constructed conspiracy … Is history about to repeat itself? It’s June 1919 and suffering from the trauma of losing his destroyer, thirty-four-year-old naval officer Lancelot Donaldson-Gilks has been unceremoniously invalided from the service. Convalescing at his London flat, Lance receives a mysterious telegram suggesting something is dreadfully wrong at his ancestral home on Exmoor. Hurriedly returning to Landacre Hall, he is shocked to learn his father has been murdered. Veronica, a local newspaper reporter who arrives to write a piece on Lance’s brother’s imminent wedding, soon realises she’s stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime scoop, something that could propel her from the dreary social columns on to the front page. She convinces Lance to let her report the story, and together they form an unlikely alliance to uncover the killer. Their investigation leads them to Titanic and the Palace of Westminster where Lance is threatened by the sinister Lord Cumberland who warns him to let sleeping dogs lie. Undaunted by Lord Cumberland’s oily menace, the intrepid duo battle dangerous clandestine adversaries prepared to go to any lengths to keep one of the world’s greatest maritime secrets from ever being revealed.