There is just something about true crime that lends itself so well to the podcast format.

One of the latest offerings on BBC Sounds looks at the mysterious case of a Scottish man who went missing, presumed drowned, on a beach in California.

The podcast begins with Avis’s son Ruben reporting his dad missing after he went for a swim on Monterey near Carmel in California. But not everything is as it seems.

What began as a desperate search to save a swimmer quickly turned into a manhunt as it became clear the man, Kim Avis, had tried to fake his own death.

I should warn readers the podcast deals with domestic and sexual abuse which could be triggering or upsetting for some people.

Avis was a well-known street trader and occasional busker in Inverness high street and was thought to have moved to the Highlands in the 1980s.

It was soon revealed that he had failed to appear in court in Scotland to face rape and sexual assault charges and that this was a stunt by Avis to evade justice.

Two episodes of the podcast by BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team have dropped so far and new episodes are made available every Friday with each running at around half an hour.

The first episode begins with the moment Avis goes missing and then delves into Avis’s cult status in Inverness. By all accounts, he seems like a good guy who swims Loch Ness for charity. He also talked a young person out of suicide and helped a police officer who had been thrown threw a window at the job centre.

He also owned a large house worth around a quarter of a million pounds despite only running a street stall selling knick-knacks which added to the intrigue with many speculating he was a hippy millionaire.

But there were rumours of his somewhat deviant behaviour and that there was a much more sinister side where he was propositioning young women and girls.

The second episode delves deeper into his dark past. He had a bizarre fascination with wolves and almost modelled himself on the animal.

In the second episode Jade tells her story of how Avis seduced her as a 15-year-old girl and later began a deeply abusive and coercive relationship during which she was beaten and raped her over the best part of a decade.

She finally went to the police in 2015 and then other women also came forward which led to the charges against Avis.

An international arrest warrant was issued and as the podcast ends, a stranger appears to have arrived in Colorado Springs where he seems to have a new victim in his sights.

The podcast is well-paced and keeps up the suspense by drip-feeding information which pieces together the bizarre and disturbing life of Kim Avis.

Of course, you can Google his name and find out exactly what happened but I have decided to resist doing that to get the most out of the podcast.

It is a fascinating but disturbing tale – exactly what you would expect and hope for from a true crime podcast. Episode three will drop on Friday and is available of BBC Sounds.