Iain McDowall's stylish crime debut, A Study In Death, is the first in a series of novels featuring Chief Inspector Jacobson and DS Kerr of Crowby CID. Dr Roger Harvey, a high-flyer headed for the academic first division, has pursued his career and women with equal passion. But now he's just another murder statistic; his body has been lying in his flat for four days when a small-time burglar stumbles over it on his way out with the stereo. Jacobson and Kerr can discern no obvious motive for the killing. Harvey didn't do serious drugs, didn't have a criminal record, definitely wasn't gay. Despite Jacobson's dependence on booze and fags, and the fact that Kerr's marriage is disintegrating faster than his boss's liver, the two men are good coppers.

But to solve the case they have to untangle the dark threads of a mystery which threatens to unravel in seemingly every direction: from Crowby University to Amsterdam; from million dollar machinations in the software industry to New Age cultists in the English Lake District.