The Cropped Frame

A photograph can tell the truth in every pixel and still make you believe a lie. Private investigator Chantelle Smith is hired by photographer Naomi Fletcher after a series of anonymous photographs begins arriving at her home. Each image seems to show Naomi being watched, and the obvious suspect is her former fiancé, Aaron Marsh. Then another photograph arrives while Chantelle is watching Aaron somewhere else. When Naomi is murdered before Chantelle can identify who has been frightening her, a disturbing case becomes something harder: discovering whether the photographs were part of the killing, a separate campaign, or a story designed to make everyone look in the wrong direction. Set in contemporary Stockport and South Manchester, The Cropped Frame is a character-led British murder mystery about evidence, perception and the dangerous distance between what a photograph shows and what its framing makes you believe. The first Chantelle Smith Mystery introduces a private investigator who distrusts easy answers — and knows that certainty can be the least reliable clue.