An Autopsy of Lies

In the village of Wychwood-on-Lea the dead don't lie, but the living will do anything to keep their secrets.

Celia Hertley is a meticulous, sharp-witted mortician who prefers the straightforward nature of corpses to the complications of the living. When Thomas Blackwell, the village's proud historian, is brought to her after a supposedly fatal fall from his library ladder, she finds clean, symmetrical bruises around his wrists and a Latin note in his pocket: Vincit qui patitur, he who endures, conquers.

Then a retired schoolteacher dies in an apparent gas leak, with a broken window latch, scratches on her hands and a second message: Silentium est vinculum, silence is a bond. When the Reverend Michael Harper collapses mid-sermon with a chalky poison on his lips, the pattern is undeniable.

All three victims opposed a contentious land deal a decade ago, one championed by the village's powerful Alden family. Dismissed at every turn by DI Christopher Winters, Celia keeps going, even after a note is pinned to her mortuary door: You're next.