What was hidden at the bottom of the Hayling Island Lake?

This summer’s heatwave has brought back memories of one of the locations that inspired my DI Andy Horton mystery, The Hayling Island Murders set during a scorching July. 

Hayling Island, on the south coast of England, where I live, is home to Sinah Lake — a former gravel pit and popular fishing lake. The grass is like straw, tempers are fraying, and Sinah Lake has dried out so much that the fish have to be moved to another level of it.

The water level has dropped dramatically, revealing objects long hidden beneath the surface.  This sparked the idea for THE HAYLING ISLAND MURDERS.

What if, during a routine clean-up, something unexpected was discovered?

Not a body. 

Something far more puzzling. 

Sinah Lake on the southern tip of the island,is  owned by the Hayling Golf Club.  It is home to the Portsmouth and District Angling Society, (PDAS) founded in 1948 and one of the leading angling clubs in the south. 

It is a gravel pit of 15 acres and is managed as a mixed fishery.  The PDAS were a great help to me for my research for this novel, and it was incidental that I discovered the secretary of the club is married to an old school friend of mine!

Water levels in Sinah Lake have not been good since 1990 when the golf club gained water extraction rights to water their greens, therefore each year they take their legal amount. However, with climate change, the lake now takes a lot longer to refill and in a particularly dry spell can pose a danger to the fish. 

There are always work parties from the PDAS looking after the health of the fish, moving them to safety, tidying the lake and removing items. I wondered if during one of these tidying operation a mysterious object was found. 

I didn't wish it to be the remains of a body but something a little different that sets Andy and his colleagues off an intriguing investigation.  In this case it is a box of rare and valuable antique coins that throws up enough questions for me to begin the plot. 

How did they get there?  When were they put there? Who did they belong to? Will they find the remains of the owner or the thief in the lake?

But that's not all! To make it more interesting a set of handcuffs are fixed to the box. Who was in them? Why?  And where is he or she?

Then Horton is called out to an isolated stretch of Gosport shore where a body has been found in a burned-out car.  Is that connected to the discovery of the box?   Well I'll leave you to read the book to find out.

Happy reading.

You can read more about the angling society and see the pictures of Sinah Lake featured in THE HAYLING ISLAND MURDERS on the PDAS website.

The Hayling Golf Club was originally founded in 1883 by the Sandeman family, famous for their port and sherry business. In 1938 the golf club commenced a programme of shingle extraction with the Hayling Coal and Transport Co. which created Sinah Lake near the clubhouse. This provided a steady income stream, and a new source of water for the course. Sinah Common, the surrounding area, was handed over to the army for the war and became a heavy anti- aircraft gun site. The ammunition store at Sinah Common gravel pit was underpinned by English Heritage to prevent collapse into the lake - and the ammunition store is still on the lake today. 

You can visit the location of this novel, and the other DI Andy Horton Solent Murder Mysteries, on my especially created Google Map.

You can also read the history of the golf club and see some lovely photographs of the Hayling Golf Club on their website to give you a flavour of the area.

 ‘I read this book in a day and I never looked back! I enjoyed the thrill of the plot and its twists.’ Betsy H.

‘Clever, tight plotting and writing with excellent character development throughout. It kept me guessing and turning the pages.’ Daisy W.

‘This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, action, intrigue, mystery, great police work and a great plot twist with some crazy twists and turns!’ Debbie B.