It's a Sin - Steve Burford

"He is a talented and very promising young policeman. Make no mistakes, he deserves the promotion."

But when gay Detective Sergeant Dave Lyon is assigned to Detective Inspector Claire Summerskill's team as part of the Service's 'positive discrimination policy', no-one at Foregate Street Station is happy. And that includes Summerskill and Lyon.

Mutual suspicion and mistrust must be shelved however, when a young man's beaten body is found on a canal tow path, and a dead-end case of 'happy slapping' unexpectedly turns into a murder investigation.

Why would someone want to kill middle class arts student Jonathan Williams? And how is his death linked to that of rent boy and would be 'adult' film star Sean?

As Summerskill and Lyon's investigations proceed, the newly promoted detectives begin to untangle a web of connections, false assumptions and sheer prejudices that force them both to question closely not just their relationship with each other but with the rest of their colleagues at Foregate Street Station and with the Police Service as a whole.

"It's A Sin" is the first in the "Summerskill and Lyon" police procedural novels.