Spoilers Ahead: 

Another fantastic book by Bernie Steadman. The second book in a series of three - so far! - I was very impressed with this book. Steadman has managed to keep the same exciting pace in the first book throughout the second as well, with a plot that’s totally different but still just as enticing! 

We follow Dan Helier - again - and his team as they dig up two dead bodies on Dartmoor - hence the name. They are just bodies, as their hands and feet have been cut off, making identification nigh-on impossible. At the same time, a student is killed after taking some drugs at a party. There’s him and another boy, and he has complete liver failure, whilst one of them goes into a coma and never wakes up again. The parents and the siblings are all livid at the fact this has happened to their children, but Dan advises them to not do anything that could mess up the investigation. 

They find out that the recipe for the drugs has been tainted, although they don’t know why, whether it’s an accident or a calculate plan. What with the dead boy and the bodies, Dan has a lot of work ahead of him, and he somehow thinks the two cases are related; again! 

When the boy with liver failure wakes up, they get a name from him as the supplier. It belongs to a Moss Garrett, who works at the animal sanctuary with his mum and his brother, whom Claire (Dan’s girlfriend, and a key character in book 1 - huzzah!) recognises from her school. They work in an animal sanctuary, and both Sally and Dan go there, undercover, to stake Moss out - they had enough evidence to arrest him, but not enough to figure out who makes the drugs, so they can stop any more children from dying. 

They search for leads, and it’s a bit hit-and-miss at times. There seems to be no new leads about the ‘Bog bodies’, as they are labelled, and they actually find out they’re originally from New Zealand. As for the Garrett’s, they follow the entire family, but mostly Moss. They stake out the animal sanctuary, and are certain that drugs are being hidden there. 

They find deeds to the house which shows that the animal sanctuary, a charity, doesn’t actually belong to Moss’s mother. In the house at the animal sanctuary, there is a bed which belongs to someone, but it’s ransacked, as if they were packing quickly. It belongs to a girl they used to work with. It turns out, Moss’s mother took over from the girl after she ran away and got the recipe wrong, resulting in the deaths. They arrest the Garrett’s, thinking that the brother might not be as clean as they want him to be. In addition to the drug charges, Moss is getting done for TW sexual assault on one of the boys who helped them to find him, and Garrett’s mother ends up flinging acid in his face. Also, one of their own - Adam Foster - is stabbed after trying to be the hero, and it’s touch and go as to whether he will live or not. 

Additionally, the bodies are related to the Garrett case! Moss’s mother apparently ‘bought’ the land from the deceased Australian couple - but she didn’t. They were just killed, and she took the land without anyone knowing. And this took Moss’s brother by surprise, as he never got the love and support he needed from his parents, so he looked at them as parents when they took him in. 

And, as they expected, Moss’s brother was actually the one behind the body in the animal sanctuary - it was Mr Garrett, his father. After years of abusing his mother, he hit him around the head, and took him into town, but he was already dead. He hid him at the sanctuary, in the car, which is where his body was found. 

As usual, Bernie Steadman did an incredible job writing this book. There was so much going on, so much to work with, so much excitement and mystery and thrill. Steadman is very quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. The characters are so well-developed and lovely to read about, the plot is always exceptional, and their is a humorous tone throughout that I have grown to adore with Steadman’s books. Also, may I just say, thank you for getting Claire and Dan together! I was rooting for them in the first book, and I felt the relief in my body when I realised they were still together. There’s nothing much else I can say, other than I would recommend her books until the day I die.