Robin's brave joke that first day came back to her. 'All paths lead to the graveyard.' Now it didn't seem witty, it was mere fact... Nether Hampton appears on the surface to be the classic Somerset village. All the ingredients are there: the traditional village pub, the Gothic church, fox-hunting squires, wealthy incomers, crusty old retired generals, an archaeologist digging up the remains of a Norman castle and, this being the 1980s, even some young, tearaway punks. Into these placid surroundings drops Rain Morgan, gossip columnist for the Daily Post, simply looking to relax away from the Fleet Street rat race. Almost immediately, the bodies begin to turn up. Born in London in 1942, Lesley Grant-Adamson made her name as a journalist, notably with The Guardian, before turning to writing crime fiction in 1985. Patterns in the Dust, her first novel, saw the debut of her series heroine Rain Morgan and on first publication was described as a 'classic English whodunit' by the Sunday Telegraph. Apart from her novels, Lesley has also written short stories and non-fiction, including a guide to Writing Crime and Suspense Fiction and in 1994 she became the first crime writer to be appointed Writer in Residence to a British university. She currently lives in Suffolk.