Thieves' Gate

A rock musician is missing, and a bungled company fraud has not been fully investigated, although the crimes are linked. The CEO may have committed both crimes. He was sacked but not charged. He is constantly threatened by people who could lose their jobs. After her success in the case known as Cosimo's Room and others, DI Laura Baxter expects to be promoted. She takes over both new cases but feels weakened by the mistrust between colleagues, and frightened as never before of influential people who are hiding the truth. Her lover stops coming, worried by allegations of police corruption. Matt Hoyle was hired to investigate fraud and theft in the company. Laura is suspicious of Hoyle's movements after the CEO's mother is found dead. The village of Ransoms frightens her. Which gate leads to the truth? Who is trying to kill them? Laura and Matt piece together evidence of the musician's disappearance in the village, where there is a link to possible drug trafficking by the company and the fraud. The murdered woman's husband is not demented as claimed, and the unlikely becomes the probable in Laura's mind when a complex modern painting shows the gate used by thieves and the murderer.