Sad pelican / L.A. Kent.

Midsummer on the North Cornwall coast: A body is found in a sandy cove near Padstow. The cause of death is not obvious but what is shocking is the way the scene has been staged. Nearby, a local business group is planning a marine festival, with one of its number hellbent on success whatever the cost. In Polzeath, a man enters a beach bar to face a life-changing revelation. When a second body is found bizarrely staged, it is clear that the killer has a mission. With an ugly social media campaign targeting DCI Felipe Treloar, newly-promoted DI Samantha Scott is put in charge and Treloar is sidelined to a spate of property vandalism and the disappearance of a visiting student. Then with a third shocking murder, pressure mounts on the police and Treloar is suspended. But Treloar has friends. With his reputation, his career, and his very freedom threatened, he calls for aid bringing the mercurial Ben Fitzroy from a shady government agency back to Cornwall. Who is pulling the strings and why are they pursuing Treloar? Why these victims and why the Cornish tableaux? A fourth scandalous murder reunites Treloar and Sam, and working with Fitzroy, they close in on an unlikely killer and a remorseless puppeteer. But not only the murder victims will perish this summer. Whilst some relationships are tested and reinforced, others are tested to destruction as a Cornish community bears witness to the devastating power of obsessive love.