Death Lies Beneath: A DI Andy Horton Mystery

Rowson’s solid eighth police procedural featuring Det. Insp. Andy Horton (after A Killing Coast) opens with the funeral of 47-year-old Daryl Woodley, whose corpse was found on the marshes near Langstone Harbor three months after he was released from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. Two weeks before the ex-con’s death, he was assaulted. After three days in hospital, Woodley got out of bed and somehow ended up miles away, possibly dead from a combination of exposure and the aftereffects of having been bludgeoned. Horton, who stakes out the funeral, gets nothing useful, until one of the attendees, an elegantly dressed woman, turns up dead on a wreck in Portsmouth Harbor. Both killings may be linked with a series of jewel thefts that have occurred across the Continent over the previous 15 years. Convincing characters and a coherent plot bolster a crafty solution to the crimes. (Dec.)