The Healers — Ann Cleeves

IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT AND ERNIE BOWLES IS STEPPING OUT-- TO DIE.

Ernie's big fantasy is that his blind date with a blonde divorcee will end with the two of them back at the farm, cozily shacked up. Alas, Sunday morning finds Ernie on the cold kitchen floor, all alone and strangled.

A simple case of kiss-and-kill? Perhaps, but Inspector Stephen Ramsay can find no one in the entire village who liked the man, certainly not the young couple who rent his caravan nor the respectable folk on the adjoining farm. Another strangling -- the even more puzzling murder of quiet housewife Val McDougal -- compounds the confusion, leading Ramsay to the local center for alternative healing, where both victims were well known.

Meanwhile, a murderer quietly observes the hunt, as Ramsay pursues a case in which the astonishing finale will catch even the canniest reader by the throat...