Evil for Evil (DI Marjory Fleming, 7)

A skeleton is found shackled to a rock in a sea-cave near an isolated Scottish village. And DI Marjory Fleming attempts to uncover the pattern she cannot see, a deadly and ugly pattern she must solve before it€s too late. Lovatt Island is one of a group of beautiful, uninhabited islands, near the isolated village of Innellan in south-west Scotland. The skeleton found in one of its sea-caves, shackled to the rock, looks like the relic of some long ago conflict between rival smuggling gangs, but the modern watch clasped around its bony wrist gives the lie to that. It presents a challenging, if not perhaps an urgent case for DI Marjory Fleming. But in the village there is an atmosphere of fear and tension and seemingly unconnected incidents start to happen: unpleasant vandalism; a house is set on fire. The rank smell of hatred is in the air and Fleming, desperate to prevent more violence senses a pattern she cannot see, a deadly uncompleted design becoming uglier and uglier.