Too Close to the Sun

The main character in the Jacaranda Dunne Mysteries, Jacaranda Dunne herself, (JD as she is known). She is approaching forty, tough, realistic, manipulative and brave, but she has a vulnerable side to her as well. While serving as a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, her husband, also a serving officer in the Met, was shot and killed in a mugging outside the police station. She is haunted by the idea that it was her fault, and that her pursuit and arrest of Thomas Steed, a notorious drug dealer, was the motive for her husband’s death. So she abandons her career and moves to Spain to open a small detective agency in Málaga.

Jacaranda has two people in her team, Ignacio, known as Nacho, a young Spaniard who manages the digital side of the agency-and not always strictly within the law-and Linda, her general assistant, a tall, brash Mancunian who has lived in Spain for many years and has made many useful contacts. Together they make a solid team.

As for Jacaranda’s love life, it’s five years since Jacaranda was widowed, and although she has had a number of casual lovers since then, she doesn’t want a permanent relationship with anyone, until she meets a captain in the Guardia Civil that is. But even now she feels she can’t move on until she has found out who killed her husband.

In Too Close to the Sun, the fourth crime novel in the series, it is JD’s mother, Rosa, who insists that she investigates the tragic death of a young man who falls into the sea while paramotoring close to the harbour.

As shocked sunbathers watch the para-motor stall and the pilot desperately struggle to regain height, a strong gust of wind suddenly sweeps him across the harbour wall and out of sight. A second para-motor close by continues to fly due west, apparently oblivious to what has happened.

The coast guards are quick to reach the scene but at first there is no sign of the man or his machine. Police divers are brought in to recover his dead body. They find nothing unusual about the death and declare it an unfortunate accident, but JD’s mother, Rosa, is not convinced and contacts her daughter. The dead man is the son and heir of a prominent aristocrat, the Duke of Roble and she is a close friend of the family. She explains to JD that the father is very ill and is not expected to recover. His son stood to inherit both the title and a considerable fortune if he had lived. Now his sister has become the duke’s heir. Not only is she a possible suspect but she could also be in danger.

As JD begins to investigate the case she struggles to find any evidence that points to murder, however there are plenty of people with a motive to kill him. The main question is who had the means to do it? And who is the mystery man who was paramotoring with him?