The Final Round

Detective Inspector Garibaldi is a self-taught officer with a fondness for country music. He is also the only person in the Metropolitan Police who does not drive. The story opens the morning after the Boat Race, when a body turns up in a riverside nature reserve on the Thames. The man has been brutally stabbed, his tongue has been removed, and a scarf from an Oxford college has been pushed into his mouth. Police identify him as Nick Bellamy, who was last seen at a charity quiz hosted by his former Oxford classmate, the well-known television newsreader Melissa Matthews. Garibaldi's first lead is Bellamy's fellow students from Balfour College. He focuses in particular on the unexpected closing round of that year's quiz, where guests had to decide whether accusations against Matthews and her Oxford circle were true. The accusations cover everything from plagiarism and shoplifting to sextortion and murder.