The Special Girls

Author/Guide: Isabelle Grey

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: At a summer camp for young girls with eating disorders.

ISBN: 978-1784292850
Genre: Crime, Police Procedural

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What you need to know before your trail

DI Grace Fisher investigates the murder of a young doctor working at a summer camp for young girls with eating disorders. Professor Ned Chesham, the man behind the camp deep in the Essex countryside, is hailed as a miracle worker, but the murder of one of his team throws a spotlight on his work and the ‘special girls’ under his care.

Grace Fisher is pulled from the murder investigation to head up a cold case review involving Chesham himself. She must tread carefully: Chesham has just been knighted, he has friends in high places and any suspicion about his work risks damaging his patients even further. But the deeper Grace probes, the clearer it becomes that there is something rotten at the heart of his treatment programme.

As Grace peels away the lies that led to the young doctor’s murder and uncovers the extent of the damage done to Chesham’s patients, she realises how few people want her to get to the truth. Is there anyone she can trust with the horrifying secret of the special girls?

Travel Guide

Isabelle Grey’s Essex

Essex

Long Wryford

The fictional village where the summer camp is taking place close by. Wryford Hall is fictional but it sounds very nice –

“The tree cover soon gave way to open parkland. Underfoot the grass felt parched and crunch, more like mown hay than lawn. After a short walk the meadow ended at a grave driveway onto which spilled light from a line of tall windows…Bathed in moonlight, the hall was a handsome flat-fronted, two-storey house.”

Colchester

The main setting for the book and where the police in the novel are based. Their investigation takes them back and forth across the county. As they drive into the outskirts of the city, they often remark on the views of Mersea Island and the surrounding wetlands.