Serious international crime operations thrive in big cities. They don't occur in tinpot little towns like Llangwelli. Or do they?

It's late evening when the Regional Control Centre receives a mysterious 999 call. No-one speaks, but the call location is somewhere along a narrow, hardly used tree-lined stretch of road that leads nowhere. With no uniformed officers free to investigate, they pass the call on to DC Judy Lane at Llangwelli station.

Lane informs DS Norman Norman who, concerned it may be a trap, agrees to meet her at the scene. But when Norman arrives, he finds a dead motorcyclist sitting against a tree, and the young detective unconscious nearby. It looks as if he was right to think it could be a trap, but if the biker died when he fell off his bike and hit the tree, who attacked Judy Lane? And who made the 999 call?

Next morning an accident investigator suggests this was no accident, and the motorcyclist was a victim of a hit and run. Then, to complicate matters further, they find a young woman's body near the scene of the accident. But who is the young woman, and what's her connection to the motorcyclist? Before long, Llangwelli's finest are drawn into a tangled web of deception and corruption, but someone seems to know their every move and is trying to silence anyone who might know the truth.

Norman and boss DI Sarah Southall came to Llangwelli on the understanding crime was very much small time, but now it seems they may have uncovered a serious crime operation right on their doorstep. The idea such a thing could happen in a quiet little town like Llangwelli seems unlikely. But then, perhaps that's what they're supposed to think.

Maybe the idea it's so unlikely makes it more likely…

A Body In The Lane is the third book in the Rejoiner series. If you prefer mysteries delivered with a lighter touch, you'll love P.F. Ford's latest offering.