Playing for the ashes

When country milkman Martin Snell makes his usual delivery to fifteenth-century Celandine Cottage one fine spring morning in Kent, he expects to be greeted by the cottage's seductive tenant, Gabriella Patten, not the ugly remains of a fire pointing to murder. A burnt-out chair, a peculiar pattern of soot on the walls, an asphyxiated corpse, two footprints, and a collection of discarded cigarette butts bring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers out of their London territory and into conflict with the local investigator whose turf they are…