'On stage, the light reveals a chair, on which the lone figure of a middle-aged lady sits. Bathed in creamy light, she gazes heavenwards, mouth open in motionless wonder. Her body pushed forward and her head yanked back, simultaneously, separating the vertebrae, as the pathologist would later say. And her throat cut, a mess of blood.'

AN ABBOT PETER MYSTERY

When the curtains of the Bell Theatre open for the second half of Mother's Day, a new play commissioned for the venue's thirtieth anniversary, the lifeless body of theatre director Hermione Bysshe-Urquhart MBE is revealed. Within the startled audience sit retired monk Abbot Peter and his guest for the evening, Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah.

Tamsin and Peter undertake a new murder investigation among the cast and crew of the theatre, a struggling pro-am business operating from a converted church on the cliffs of the derelict seaside town of Stormhaven. Dark secrets from the past will be unearthed, some lying deeper than others.