Photo by Severin Demchuk on Unsplash

Tombstoning

The darkly funny, gripping DEBUT mystery by one of Scotland's finest writers – 20th Anniversary Edition

Author: Doug Johnstone

Pages: 300 pages

Synopsis

David’s best mate died falling off a cliff – and he was the last to see him alive. Fifteen years later, he returns to Arbroath, where another death forces him to face the past.

Description

Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do?

If you're David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don’t go back. Not for fifteen years.

Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.

The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn’t going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying…

What is tombstoning?

The act of tombstoning has been around for generations, but the term has only been used since the 1990s. Tombstoning means jumping vertically off cliffs and piers and dropping like a stone into the sea or a lake, quarry or reservoir.

Tombstoning may be thrilling content for your YouTube channel, but it’s also extremely dangerous. Over the last two decades, tombstoning in the UK has caused at least 20 deaths and at least 70 life changing injuries. (source: RoSPA )