Missing, Presumed Dead — J.M. Gregson

Detective Inspector Percy Peach, as bouncy and as aggressive as a bantam cock, is feared greatly by the petty criminals of Lancashire - and not a little by his own chief, the feeble Superintendent Tucker. Peach finds to his disgust that his new detective sergeant is to be a woman. However the capable and resourceful Lucy Blake proves, as the tale proceeds, to be more than a match for the formidable Peach.

Their initial assignment is a baffling one. A nineteen year old girl has disappeared without warning from her home. Two years later, her body is found at the bottom of a deep pond on the North Lancs golf course. Peach and Blake, in finding out about those who are close to her in her last months, begin to work out their own relationship and find it may after all be a rewarding one. The solution to the mystery is as unexpected as it is chilling and convincing.