Martin Shaw

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or story. It is a sequence of incantations and a series of battles. For each of the three journeys, he walks alone into a forest in the heart of Dartmoor and waits. What arrives are stories - fragments of myth and folk tale...

The theft of expired passports-and the subsequent murder of a female clerk-expose potentially explosive ethnic hatred in a seaside town. The victim's boyfriend faces off against a gang of Arab toughs, with Gently and Bacchus caught in the middle.

Real-estate developer Cora Davidson shows up at her newly purchased property and finds the reluctant seller murdered in his backyard. Gently and Bacchus focus on the mansion's mute gardener, but they soon learn that the house has a sordid history.

Shaw helps us get acquainted with the kinds of folktales and myths that can be helpful in navigating these turbulent times. He says, "They are always trying to dig into the mud of the encounter with the notion that possibly there's a little bit of gold in there. There's some information that, over time, could turn into wisdom."

Called to a crime scene at a working-class boarding house, Gently and Bacchus find a woman horribly beaten to death, her eyes covered discreetly with a handkerchief. The victim also carried her daughter's birth certificate, with the name of the child's father crossed out and "satan" penciled in. Following this lead, Gently and Bacchus probe the twisted secrets of a family that seems to harbor pure evil.

The death of a coal miner 800 feet underground presents logistical problems for Gently and Bacchus. More challenging still is figuring out which of the tensions and rivalries raging above the surface is a motive for murder.

A doctor's seeming suicide by lethal injection has Gently wondering why she has a bruise on the side of her face. Even the discovery of a suicide note leaves him unconvinced.

Gently investigates a death in police custody- and insists that Bacchus assist him, even though his sergeant has just submitted his formal resignation.

When DCI Gently and his team investigate a body found in a chemical storage tank, they learn that the victim's wife was convicted of his murder eight years ago. But Gently decides to reopen the case against the wishes of DI Bacchus, who had worked on the original investigation.

After a car turns up in a river with a drowned young woman in the passenger seat but no driver, the detectives follow the trail to the home of local aristocrats. Bacchus resents the family, and Gently suspects his sergeant may be crossing a line to get a conviction.