Reginald Hill

Arms and the Women Reginald Hill

When Ellie Pascoe finds herself under threat, the men in her life assume it's because she's married to a cop.

But while they trawl after shoals of red herrings, Ellie is blasted off course with a motley crew of women on a voyage of discovery whose perils make Scylla and Charybdis look like a pair of Barbie dolls.

Irish arms, Colombian drugs, and men who will stop at nothing create a tidal wave which threatens to sweep her away. She heads out of town in search of haven but instead finds herself at the very edge of the storm, in a remote clifftop house undermined by the sea.

Fat Andy eventually smells a Security Service rat and comes steaming to the rescue, but for once it's too little, too late. Ellie's on her own (apart from her Middle England friend, Daphne; an octogenarian aid worker and her vapid secretary; a gorgeous South American money launderer; an ancient crone; and a female cop who gets up her nose) and must reach deep down into her reserves to find the strength to survive.