Kingdom of Lies

When a woman turns up drowned on the grounds of a royal estate, Leeds sergeant Keen Dunliffe is hoping it's just a case of a drunken skinny-dipper who fell and hit her head. But when the woman turns out to be a historian whose specialty is English royalty and politics in the eighteenth century and who was attending a conference at a local university, it's too much of a public relations nightmare to take lightly.

The mystery deepens when two secretive men from the Met show up to ask Keen to befriend a colleague of the dead woman's--an American college professor named Dr. Jillie Waltham who was also at the conference--in the hopes that she can shed some light on the victim's life and work. Since tagging along with Jillie means he'll be able to spend some time with his twin sons, who are living with his ex-wife and her fiance in London, he's not that unhappy to have the assignment. But simple drowning or not, with two such high-ranking government officials interested in the case but unable to tell him why, Keen, known for his rebelliousness and bad temper, is liable to get into more trouble than ever before his investigation is finished.