We are never too old to find out the truth... Irene Franks is a pensioner, who fancies herself to be a bit of a sleuth. Ruth Sinclair is a bored young housewife and stay at home mother to her toddler daughter Lillian. They meet one day when Irene jumps in a frozen pond to rescue a dog, and Ruth takes her back to her house to warm up. Soon, an unlikely friendship develops, and the next thing you know Irene and Ruth are walking around a crime scene...and figuring out things even the police missed.When a local woman named Lesley Cooper is murdered, Irene sets out to prove that the victim's ex-husband, Russ, is not the culprit. The pair determine Russ has been living in the attic of his former home, just above where the murder occurred. Following the murder he panicked and moved to the attic of the rental next door, which is where Irene and Ruth find him. They convince him to turn himself into the police, then set about proving he is not the killer. Soon they discover Lesley's own father, Geoff Allenby, disappeared twenty years earlier, and is presumed dead. Irene is convinced the cases are connected, and sets about to prove it, no matter what it takes. Their search will take them to a women's roller derby league, as well as collecting for charity with Irene dressed as a vicar, gate-crashing a funeral, and lead to Ruth applying for a job at Lesley's old company, where her long-gone father happened to work as well. It's a nice break from the boredom of being a housewife for Ruth, but how many lies will she have to tell her husband Lucus? And will they get caught? The Missing Witness combines suspenseful mystery and an unlikely partnership that with keep you hooked until the very end. Praise for Jo Smedley 'Unforgettably suspenseful' - Thomas Waugh Jo Smedley is best known as an author of murder mystery games at Red Herring Games. This is her first in a series of murder mystery novels set in her home town of Grimsby.