He was running from his past. She was running from her future. Sometimes helping a stranger is the last thing you should do . . . The Cornish village of St Petroc is the sort of place where people come to hide. Tom Killgannon is one such person. An ex-undercover cop, Tom is in the Witness Protection Programme hiding from some very violent people and St Petroc's offers him a chance to live a safe and quiet life. Until he meets Lila. Lila is a seventeen-year-old runaway. When she breaks into Tom's house she takes more than just his money. His wallet holds everything about his new identity. He also knows that Lila is in danger from the travellers' commune she's been living at. Something sinister has been going on there and Lila knows more than she realises. But to find her he risks not only giving away his location to the gangs he's in hiding from, but also becoming a target for whoever is hunting Lila. A dark, twisted, fast-paced and literate page-turner that is ultimately redemptive, The Old Religion is a contemporary British rural crime thriller that combines the deft plotting, evocative landscapes and imagery of Peter May with the richness of character and psychological acuity of Belinda Bauer's rural novels. Most surprising of all, it is based on a true story.