Award-winning mystery author Elizabeth George gives us an early glimpse of Inspector Thomas Lynley, his friend forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James, and Lady Helen Clyde, as well as a masterfully crafted whodunit, in this suspenseful recording of her superlative mystery novel.It was supposed to be a festive engagement weekend. But when Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, Eighth Earl of Asherton, and his fiance#233; Deborah Cotter, arrive at Lynley's family home, Howenstow, they find the atmosphere rife with tension. Lynley's friend Simon is struggling with the pain of losing Deborah. As for Lynley, estranged from his mother and now faced with his younger brother's recurring drug addiction, home has always been a place of tormenting memories he'd much rather forget. And then a journalist is found gruesomely murdered in the nearby village of Nanrunnel and the engagement party is truly over.
Mick Cambrey had given scores of people reason to kill him - especially his wife's father, the estate manager of Howenstow. But what St. James can't figure out - and what Lynley won't explain - is the Howenstow aristocrats and those who have long served them...and who would keep their masters' secrets to the graves. Though the series of murders that follow are out of Lynley's jurisdiction as a Criminal Investigator for New Scotland Yard, he has assigned himself to the case - for the evidence begins to point not only to his family's estate manager, but to his family itself.
