The extraordinary, demonic monument to Franco broods over the Valley of the Fallen, north of Madrid. Here, in the hallowed seclusion of the confessional box, Eduardo Tomas, Spain's Home Affairs Minister, is gunned down by a manipulative killer. Senior Interpol officer, Marius Larche, heads the investigating team; his number two, Detective Superintendent Alison Rowe, seconded from Scotland Yard because of her special knowledge of one particular political assassin, suspected of the murder.

On the beautiful fortress-like island of Molino, they investigate the web of secrecy and suspicion which surrounds the Minister's widow and the whole Tomas family. As Larche and Rowe assemble their suspects in the lavish retreat overlooking the Mediterranean, a ruthless killer penetrates the rigid security... Political and religious intrigue, the hedonism of the rich and the brutality of desperate people make an irresistible melange in Confessional, a successor to Anthony Masters' first Marius Larche investigation, Murder is a Long Time Coming.

Anthony Masters is the author of eleven works of adult fiction - notably, Conquering Heroes (1969), Red Ice (1986, with Nicholas Barker), The Men (1997), The Good and Faithful Servant (1999) and Lifers (2001) - and, prior to his death, was in the process of completing another, Dark Bridges, which he thought would be his best. Many of these works carry deep insights into social problems that he gained, over four decades, by helping the socially excluded, be it by running soup kitchens for drug addicts or by campaigning for the civic rights of gypsies and other ethnic minorities. Masters is also known for his eclectic range of non-fiction titles. It ranged from the biographies of such diverse personalities as Hannah Senesh (The Summer that Bled, 1972), Mikhail Bakunin (Bakunin: the Father of Anarchism, 1974), Nancy Astor (Nancy Astor: A Life, 1981) and the...