A suspicious scarecrow, an unprovoked assault and a missing person baffle Scottish police. Penury is the 12th book in a series of witty murder mysteries set in the south west of Scotland. 

It is a serendipitous encounter for the hapless DI Greg Byrne when retired sleuth James Munro stumbles upon his crime scene. And perhaps also for Munro himself, who, his protégé Charlie West having firmly snapped his apron strings, needs other lambs to wean. The day is far less auspicious for the victim in the affair, the unfortunate property developer Rebecca Barlow, who has been trussed up like a scarecrow in her yard. Though occurring off DI West’s Ayrshire patch, the investigation will soon intertwine with one of her own. But just what does the young drug pusher she is tracking have to do with a bizarre, apparently ritualistic death involving a rowan tree? With superstition running rife and an individual pertinent to the inquiry nowhere to be found, West might just need the help of Munro after all.