The crow trap
(Book)

"The first Vera Stanhope mystery."--Jacket.

Three local women--botanist Anne, zoologist Grace, and team leader Rachael--have banded together to study the environmental impacts of a proposed quarry on a national park. It isn't even the suicide of Rachael's friend that gets Vera on the case: it's the more obvious murder of someone closely linked to the project that raises the detective's investigative hackles. Like so many large-scale environmental programs that have the potential to disrupt small villages, the quarry project stirs up bad blood, causing Vera to question whether or not the deaths--she's convinced the two are connected--are related to the new development or to darker secrets buried much deeper.