The Opposite of Lonely

Even death needs company…

The Skelf women are recovering from the cataclysmic events that nearly claimed their lives. Their funeral-director and private-investigation businesses are back on track, and their cases are as perplexing as ever.

Matriarch Dorothy looks into a suspicious fire at an illegal campsite and takes a grieving, homeless man under her wing. Daughter Jenny is searching for her missing sister-in-law, who disappeared in tragic circumstances, while grand-daughter Hannah is asked to investigate increasingly dangerous conspiracy theorists, who are targeting a retired female astronaut … putting her own life at risk.

With a body lost at sea, funerals for those with no one to mourn them, reports of strange happenings in outer space, a funeral crasher with a painful secret, and a violent attack on one of the family, The Skelfs face their most personal – and perilous – cases yet. Doing things their way may cost them everything…

Tense, unnerving and warmly funny, The Opposite of Lonely is the hugely anticipated fifth instalment in the unforgettable Skelfs series, and this time, danger comes from everywhere…

Reviews of The Opposite of Lonely

"The squeamish may balk at the details of modern corpse disposal (and drugs, drumming and dogging) but others will find them more than fascinating. Doug Johnstone's trademark gallows humour – in what has become a brilliant series – does not preclude compassion. He may view humans as "haunted meat, waiting to die" but the persistence of love in the Skelf household, no matter what fate flings at it, is both reassuring and life-affirming." — The Times