The Black Country is by Alex Grecian. The second book in the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad series. Set in England in the late 1880's, this is the story of Scotland Yard's relatively new "murder squad". Inspector Day and Sergeant Hammersmith are summoned to a small coal mining village in England's "Black Country" to find three members of a local family that have disappeared. A eyeball has been found in a bird's nest, a unseasonable snowstorm is brewing, and time is running out for the Price's. The squad finds itself surrounded by a village that is full of superstitious, and very ill people, all of whom have secrets, and a town that is sinking into the coal mining tunnels that have been dug beneath it. A fantastic summer mystery read with enough plot twists and turns to keep you guessing.

Ratings: Adult - 10 out of 10 - V (violence) - AC (mature thematic content).