The Darkness and the Deep – Aline Templeton Free Audiobook

Written by Aline Templeton
Format: MP3

The second in the DI Marjory Fleming series, , provides an authentic, detailed picture of rural life in Galloway, Scotland – against the background of a “classic” murder mystery. In a dramatic opening, the local three-person lifeboat sets out in a storm, but after the crew deal with the ship in distress and are returning home, the boat misses the harbour and sails onto some treacherous rocks, with devastating consequences. The main focus of the book is Marjory’s investigation of the deaths, once it becomes apparent that the wreck was not an accident.

The small community is slowly coming to terms with the previous year’s foot-and-mouth epidemic, affecting the usually no-nonsense Marjory both because her farmer husband, Bill, has to get his life and business back on track, and because in her role as a police officer who carried out the unpopular government policy, her teenage daughter Cat is being ostracised at school. These family dynamics are knitted into the plot, as well as those of Marjory and her police colleagues, not least concerning a new recruit who is, horror of horrors, English – and cocky with it. A final running theme is the presence of Laura, a major character in the previous novel but here limited to making contributions when Marjory needs them, rather than participating in events in her own right. Laura is a psychologist, so not only provides Marjory with some brief profiles of the possible perpetrator, but also helps mend relations between mother and rebel daughter.