An Educated Death

when brilliant young academic John Nolan is found dying on his doorstep with the blade of a glass dagger snapped off in his chest, he utters three final 'Manfred and Jungfrau.' In his attempts to decipher the meaning of the clue, Detective Inspector Tom Ashton immerses himself in nineteenth century poetry and art, but initially the explanation provides more questions than answers. More digging reveals that Nolan was a scientist, working on a new polymeric material with the Ekaterinburg Institute in Russia. A search through his carefully encrypted computer files reveals that he was about to be cut out of a lucrative commercial contract... and that his social life revolved around a series of seedy encounters in a backstreet massage parlour. As Tom gradually slots the pieces of the puzzle together, he begins to understand that the intrigue goes far deeper than he could ever have imagined...