When the Needle Drops

(Paperback)

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The Isle of Mull, three days before Christmas, 1998. Sergeant Ivor Punch is contacted by a frantic caller, Maggie May, about a missing pilot and plane. Respected classical musician Xander Lowry has vanished without a trace after taking off, impromptu and alone, in a Cessna Needle from the airfield of a local hotel.

For Punch, this strange incident takes places on the tenth anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster, in which his brother was killed. Now aged 45, Punch is a loner who slaughters sheep to unwind and survives on a diet of whisky and The Faces vinyls, and the last thing he needs is to be reminded of the past.

Then Lowry's body is found, propped up on a hillside - but no plane in sight. To make matters even more frustrating, Punch - more used to employing the amateur sleuth-like services of local accomplices Randy, a musician-come-forestry-worker, and the island's gothic undertaker, Dave the Grave - must entertain an overly-keen and bureaucratic new deputy, PC Cluny, despatched from Head Office. A little girl, Iris, goes missing, and soon after another body is found.

And now effigies start appearing around the island - of Punch, Lowry, Iris, Charlie and others. A sinister plot is unfolding, holding the island in its grip, and all the evidence starts to point back to the start - to the elusive Maggie May and that first phone call to Sergeant Punch . . .

Author Bio

Colin MacIntyre is a multi-award-winning musician, producer, author for adults and children, and playwright. Born into a family of storytellers and writers, he was raised on the Isle of Mull and has released eight acclaimed albums to date, notably under the moniker Mull Historical Society. His debut novel, The Letters of Ivor Punch, won the 2015 Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award and was shortlisted for The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. He has been voted Scotland's Top Creative Talent at the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards. www.colinmacintyre.com