The Sentence Is Death (Detective Daniel Hawthorne)

"You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late . . . "

Heard over the phone, these are the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death with a bottle of wine - a 1982 Château Lafite worth £2,000, to be precise - in his bachelor pad.

Odd, considering Pryce didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on his wall? And, most important, which of the victim’s many, many enemies did the deed?

Baffled, the police are forced to bring in private investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s getting rather good at this murder investigation business.

But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realizes that these secrets must be exposed - even at the risk of death . . .