When his latest case leads him to the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Celia Norris, this is Davies' chance to prove his mettle.

A walk through Kensal Green Cemetery, a meat pie in the greasy spoon, a weekend away complete with flannel pyjamas - Dangerous Davies knows how to treat the woman he loves. Detective Constable Davies has two things on his Jemma Duval, the beautiful, black, hymn-singing social worker, and 'Lofty' Brock, the harmless old eccentric who drowned in the canal. To prove that Lofty's death was no accident, our hero sets out to do some undercover detective work. He soon discovers that something sinister is going on. Something that requires intuition, dedication, brilliant deduction - and a timely blow with a blunt instrument. A001 0099474239

Lost, baffled, and alone in Willesden's mean streets, Detective Constable Dangerous Davies is up against the cream of criminality. Newspaper theft (the work of organized crime?), household robbery (including cheese from the fridge), it's all grist to his mill. When Dangerous is beaten up, yet again, at a European Friendship dinner dance he reluctantly takes some sick leave. Recuperating in Bournemouth he is approached by a member of the local Widows' Luncheon Club. She wants him to find out the truth about her husband's disappearance. Dangerous declines. It's against the rules. Back in Willesden a further beating helps change his mind. So starts a double life of regular casework and moonlighting as Dangerous lurches into a mystery fit to confuse the great Holmes himself...

Dangerous is back... In this, the fourth of Leslie Thomas' novels about Dangerous Davies, the last detective, Davies has retired from the Metropolitan Police and set up as a private eye. Cases are hard to come by until he is aburptly thrown into two mysteries - the murders of women answering lonely hearts advertisements, and the disappearance of a young girl student, a psychologist and a secret worth millions. But can Davies solve any of the mysteries and will his new career as a private detective be a success? People with the amazing characters that are the trademark of any book by Leslie Thomas, this is a highly original detective story that is as ingenious as it is touching and funny.