Description

The Powys Deacon

Catrin Sayer returns to art crime investigation with a promotion to detective inspector in the elite Art and Antiques Unit at New Scotland Yard. Her first assignment is to join a major investigation into an international art crime ring. As she begins her new role, Sayer finds she has an unexpected second case to handle; she has specifically been picked by a senior Home Office bureaucrat to look into the origin of a painting found in a village in mid-Wales, in the home of a recently-deceased judge.

As she balances the competing casework assigned, a deacon at the local church in the village, Tregynon, comes into her sights. John Farrell had been open about his past life of crime and imprisonment when he was appointed at St. Deiniol's. He talked about how it motivated him to help people released from prisons and other institutional environments. But is there more, unshared? Are there events in his past darker and more disturbing, still hidden from both the church and the police? And how are they tied to the painting?

Bit by bit, between events in London, Dubai and a small village in Wales, Sayer unravels the secret of the painting and the burden still carried by the Powys Deacon.