What Lies Within

She knows her brother wouldn’t abandon her. But she is discovering how much she doesn’t know about him.

Glasgow, 1988. Eighteen-year-old Pat Devine has pink hair, a university course she’s been neglecting, and an older brother who has always been there for her. Since their parents died, Tom has been the one person she could count on.

Then he disappears.

A parcel addressed to Tom contains a hollowed-out Bible and a key. Following it, Pat discovers her brother’s secret life as a private investigator—and a trail leading to a struggling Dundee jute mill, where he is accused of stealing a hundred thousand pounds.

Pat is certain Tom is no thief. Finding him, however, will take more than certainty.

Ruth, the mill owner’s daughter, offers a way inside. Fiercely protective of her father and passionate about the business, she is also someone Pat finds increasingly difficult to resist. Working together gives Pat hope of finding Tom. Being together offers something she hadn’t expected to find at all.

But missing stock is only a small part of what is happening at the mill. As Pat uncovers connections between Dundee’s docks and Glasgow’s streets, she must learn to question the people she wants to believe—and recognise how her own loyalties shape what she sees.

What Lies Within is a psychological crime novel about family, desire, moral compromise and the choices people make to protect what they cannot bear to lose. With a lesbian protagonist, a sharp Scottish voice and a relationship at its emotional heart, it introduces Pat, Tom and Davie: three people whose different instincts will become the foundation of The Devine Trio.

Book One of The Devine Trio.