The Reen Ledger
A standalone novel
A forensic auditor comes home to the Gwent Levels to prove that his brother's death was no suicide.
South Wales
A crime thriller set on the Gwent Levels
Reclaimed marshland on the edge of the Severn, crossed by drainage ditches the locals call reens and held back from the sea by walls whose story goes back to the Romans.
The real The Gwent Levels
The Gwent Levels stretch along the Severn Estuary between Cardiff and Chepstow: flat fields laid out over centuries by draining the marsh. The ditches that carry the water away are called reens, and their upkeep has always been a matter of law, money and local argument.
The sea has broken in before. In January 1607 a great flood swept up the Bristol Channel and drowned farms and villages on both shores. In the church at Goldcliff a plaque set up in 1609 records the loss.
Today the Levels are a protected landscape of wetland birds and pump houses, a short drive from Newport and the Severn crossings.
In the books
In The Reen Ledger, forensic auditor Cal Vance comes home when his brother is pulled from the water at the Goldcliff pump house, and finds a pattern written into the drainage itself.
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More places from the books
Wells · Bath · Salisbury · Norfolk · Bodmin Moor · The Fens · Pendle Hill