Dawn Brookes

Body in the Woods Dawn Brookes

A peaceful village. A buried secret. A gripping new psychological crime novel for 2020.




When private investigator Carlos Jacobi spends Christmas with his sister in the Peak District, his ex-police dog unearths the body of an elderly man in the woods. Why would someone murder a seemingly harmless old man? When the dead man's family hires Carlos to investigate, he discovers fractured relationships, family secrets and villagers with something to hide.




To top it all, the man in charge of the investigation is someone Carlos had hoped never to meet again. Memories of their time in Afghanistan still haunt him. The bad blood between the two men threatens to cloud the investigation as neither can bury the past. DCI Terry Masters is livid when Carlos is hired to investigate the death, and takes it personally. He orders his sergeant to make sure the private investigator is kept out of the loop.




Carlos unravels lies and motives among the seemingly innocuous village population. Soon, his dog, Lady makes another grisly discovery, and the suspense heightens.

Carlos teams up with an old friend to get to the bottom of this frustrating case.