In the early weeks of the Second World War, a young woman is brutally murdered in the village of East Molesey in Surrey. Ordinarily, this would be a case for the local CID, but the victim’s father is the local MP, and he pulls strings to get Scotland Yard involved.
Detective Inspector Rufus Stone is tired. He’s sick and tired of having his requests to enlist in the army turned down by his boss. The very last thing he needs is to be sent on the trail of a murderer in a sleepy backwater. Especially as this is the sleepy backwater he fought so hard to escape six years ago.
As Stone starts to delve deeply into the secrets of the village and its inhabitants, he finds himself dealing with a serial killer, and his own involvement in the case soon takes a more personal turn.
The Cuckoo is the first in K. J. Frost’s detective series.