For seventeen years, the English hamlet of Jude’s Ferry has lain abandoned, used only for army training exercises. Before then, the isolated, thousand-year-old community was famous for one thing---having never recorded a single crime. But when local reporter Philip Dryden joins the army on practice maneuvers in the empty village, its spotless reputation is literally blown apart. Artillery fire reveals a hidden cellar beneath the old pub, and inside the cellar hangs a skeleton, a noose around its neck. No one knows---or will say---who the victim was. Two days later, a terrified man is pulled from the reeds of a nearby river, with no idea of who he is or how he got there. The only name he can remember is “Jude’s Ferry.” As Dryden searches for the secret history of the dead town, he is also witnessing a kind of rebirth: Seven years after the accident that nearly killed her, his wife, Laura, is finally emerging from coma and paralysis to begin a semblance of normal life. But will that semblance be enough for her---or for Dryden? “[Kelly] will remind many of British masters of psychological whodunits such as Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell.” --- Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Kelly enlivens his tale with a richly atmospheric setting, sharp contemporary characters, and an often biting knack for capturing the essence of people.” --- The Washington Post “Phillip Dryden is so beautifully drawn, so credibly complex, that he makes most other contemporary mystery heroes and heroines look like fumblings on an Etch A Sketch.” --- Booklist (starred review) “Dryden is a marvelously odd character caught in a hellish situation. [ The Fire Baby ] far outstrips most conventional mysteries.” --- Booklist (starred review) “Intriguing characters and locale and wryly believable newsroom background.” --- Kirkus Reviews Jim Kelly, whose father was a detective at Scotland Yard, previously worked as a journalist and education correspondent for the Financial Time s. He lives in Ely with the biographer Midge Gillies and their young daughter. His debut, The Water Clock, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the best first crime novel of 2002, and in 2006 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library, which is awarded to “the author of crime fiction whose work is giving the greatest enjoyment to readers.” Skeleton Man Seventeen years laterSt Swithun's Day Sunday, 15 July 2007 Whittlesea Mere1The Capri shook to the sound of snoring, and through the fly-spattered windscreen of the mini-cab Philip Dryden contemplated the Fen horizon. Humph, the driver, slept peacefully, his lips brought together in a small bow, his sixteen stone compressing the seat beneath him. Around them the drained wasteland that had once been Whittlesea Mere, an inland lake the size of a small English county, stretched beyond sight. Overhead a cloud the size of a battleship sailed across an unblemished sky.The cab was parked in the cool shadow of a hawthorn, the only tree visible to the naked eye. They'd presented themselves at 9.00am precisely that morning at the checkpoint to Whittlesea Mere Military Firing Range, and been directed down a potholed drove to the assembly point: the wreck of a wartime tank, ferns hanging from the dark observation slit. They hadn't seen another human being since they'd been waved through the gates, which had not stopped Dryden imagining they were being watched.The reporter smoothed down his camouflage tunic and felt the familiar anxieties crowding round. This isn't a war zone, he told himself, it's a military exercise. And I'm not a soldier, I'm a reporter. I'm here to write about it, not take part. But the sight of a line of soldiers marching towards them, raising a cloud of desert-red peat dust, made his heartbeat pick up. A trickle of sweat set out from the edge of his thick jet-black hair, down towards his eye. He brushed it aside, aware that another one would quickly take its place.Dryden checked his watch: 10.15 am. The time had come. He fingered the webbing inside the blue combat helmet he was holding. The neat carved features of his medieval face remained static. He got out, the Capri's rusted door hinges screaming, and circled the cab to Humph's open side window.'You can go,' he said, waking the cabbie, watching as he struggled to remember where he was and what he was doing.'Really ...' said Humph, wiping his nose with a small pillowcase. 'Can't I stick around until they start trying to kill people?'Dryden tried to smile. 'Just remember. Same place, five pm. And for Christ's sake don't leave me here.' Boudicca, Humph's greyhound, dozing on a tartan rug in the back seat, yawned in the heat, trapping a bluebottle. Humph turned the ignition key, the engine coughed once and started, and he pulled away at speed, leaving an amber-red cloud as he raced towards the safety of the distant checkpoint. Dryden, alone, felt the hairs on his neck bristle.The soldiers approached the tank an