The Taint of Midas: (2 The Mysteries of the Greek Detective)

For over half a century, the beautiful, ruined Temple of Apollo has been in the care of the old beekeeper Gabrilis. But when the value of the land soars, he is forced to sign away his interests – and hours later he meets a violent, lonely death. When Hermes Diaktoros finds his friend’s battered body by a dusty roadside, the police quickly make him the prime suspect. But with rapacious developers threatening Arcadia’s most-ancient sites, there are many who stand to gain from Gabrilis’s death. Hermes resolves to avenge his old friend and find the true culprit, but his methods are, as ever, unorthodox ...

About the Author :
Born in rural Lincolnshire in 1959, Anne moved to South Yorkshire at the age of two. Following her education at Sheffield High School for Girls, she went into the IT industry, a career which took her to both New York’s Wall Street and Denver, Colorado. In America she began to take seriously her ambition to write fiction, and bought a typewriter for her first short stories. On returning to the UK, she booked a summer holiday with her sister. The location they chose was a tiny island in southern Greece. “We arrived at night; there was nothing to see,” she recalls. “But the next morning, I opened the shutters of our rented house, and bam! Love at first sight. The brilliant blue sea, the scent of herbs on the breeze, the timelessness of the place… It was the first moment of a love affair which has lasted twenty years.” Anne spent a number of years living in the islands; she married a Greek, and her son was born there. Returning again to the UK, she was still writing, but the short stories had grown into novels. Anne“I wrote three, and whilst I was getting interest in my writing, those novels didn’t find publishers, though a northern-based thriller came close,” she says. “Then I decided to write a novel set in Greece, based on a character who’d come to my mind whilst I was living there. He became Hermes Diaktoros. I sent the manuscript to an agent, and went off to spend some time in Greece. When I returned, I got the call I’d been waiting for. I’d written the right book at last.” Bill Wallis is a British character actor and comedian who has appeared in numerous radio and television roles, as well as in the theatre. Wallis's most frequent radio appearances have been on BBC Radio 4 for The Afternoon Play and the Classic Serial, but he was also in the cast of the long-running sketch show Week Ending. He has also narrated many children’s books.

Review :
'A cracking plot, colourful local characters and descriptions of the hot, dry countryside so strong that you can almost see the heat haze and hear the cicadas.' ‘This is a fantastic tale of passion, corruption and murder on a remote Greek island.'