Death and danger stalk undercover investigator DJ Smith when she is seconded to the Portuguese Drug Enforcement Agency on Madeira, island of orchids and flamboyant bird of paradise flowers.  After Luís Gomes’ body is found floating in Funchal harbour, Comandante Figueira blames a security lapse by her for jeopardizing the success of anti-drug operation Boa Morte.  Given a deadline to get results, DJ narrows down the list of suspects, each of them with something to hide. But her investigations draw the attention of a ruthless killer to herself and to her sniffer cat Gorgonzola.  A tense endgame takes place on the two thousand foot high cliffs of Cabo Girão, when DJ is faced with the hardest decision of her life.  

 

 

To follow in DJ's footsteps in Madeira

Extract from  SUSPECTS ALL !

I pushed open the heavy door – and immediately wished I hadn’t.  I don’t know what I’d expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t Gonçalves’ dead body.  I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.  How long had he been dead?  Tentatively I touched the back of the hand dangling limply on my side of the table.  Still warm. 

A comfortably upholstered black leather and chrome chair lay on its back, the only sign that Gonçalves had put up any kind of a fight.  He must have known his assailant.  Wary of visitors, he wouldn’t have opened the door to an unknown. 

The slam of car doors in the street outside brought home how incriminating it would be if I was found here, standing on bloodstained floorboards beside the body of a man who’d just been brutally murdered. That would take a lot of explaining away.  I turned and made for the door.

BAM BAM BAM.  The thick panels trembled under a violent pounding.

‘Police!  We know you’re in there, Gonçalves.  Open up!’ 

BAM BAM BAM.

‘Open up, or we’ll shoot off these fancy door locks.’

I took a deep breath, and with a hand that shook, took hold of the key and turned it.