A Step Away from Dying

Barbara Philips took her eyes off her eight-year-old son Michael for mere moments before he vanished without a trace.

Newly assigned to Michael’s case, Detective Inspector Richard Johnson and Sergeant Jackie Trott soon tackle a second disappearance: a missing nineteen-year-old boy.

As evidence intertwines the fate of both missing youths, police attentions turn towards Mereford Primary School where dark secrets lurk beneath the surface. Tensions mount as the investigation inches closer to exposing buried wrongdoings. Will police connect all dots before tragedy strikes again? Or have dangerous games already bred irrevocable harm?

Johnson and Trott race the clock to unmask the threat hiding in plain sight, capture the perpetrator, and hopefully recover Michael still alive. Yet someone covertly thwarts their progress, willing to do whatever it takes to keep concealed these school grounds’ sinister secrets, lies, and escalating body count.

Patricia Bevin was born and raised in Northamptonshire where she still lives. She is married to Keith and has three grown up sons and two young grandsons. In 1977, she qualified as a state-registered nurse. Apart from breaks to have her children she has spent her working life in nursing homes where she was a registered manager for over thirty years until her retirement in 2021. She has always been an avid reader of crime novels. This is her fourth novel.