The setting is Truro in Cornwall. Because of the complexity of the plot, the author must go back through the entire 20th century to construct the family trees of Joshua Carnoworth, the Napiers and the Lanyons. The history is ponderously presented but critical to illuminate the nefarious motives.

Joshua Carnoworth made his fortune in the Alaskan gold rush in the early part of the century and returned to England to find Cordelia, the girl he left behind married to a Lanyon. The war has stripped Cordelia's husband of his ability to earn a living, so she is working for the Napiers as a domestic. Adelaide, the Napier matriarch is Joshua's sister.

Joshua purchases a huge estate and installs the Lanyon family therein…his former ladylove Cordelia becomes the chief domestic and her son Michael part of Joshua's extended family. The Napiers watch jealously, fearing the Lanyons will usurp them as the natural heirs of Joshua's estate.

And lo, Joshua meets an untimely end....murdered in September 1981, leaving Michael Lanyon his sole heir. All does not go smoothly – Michael is convicted of the murder and hanged. Since a man may not profit from his own wrongdoing, the estate reverts to the Napier family. Fast forward to the present when another member of the Napier family is being married in the garden of the estate. Nicky Lanyon, Michael's son shows up, confronts the hero Chris Napier (grandson of Adelaide), and then slips off to hang himself on the property.

This is where the story begins, but a significant part of the book is spent reconstructing the past to expose the hidden agendas. The style is mournful, plaintive, and what some would call elegiac. The story moves slowly, but deliberately, through an additional murder (in which Chris is the chief suspect) to an unexpected conclusion.

The characters are well presented and well defined. However, not one of them evoked any emotion on my part, and I found myself a mere observer in their lives. The dialogue was logical, expressive of predictable feelings, but again did not draw me in. The plot was certainly a creative work of art distinguished for its sinuous twists…that, I could appreciate.

If you are ready for a change of pace from fast moving, gritty archetypal suspense novels, and you enjoy history, then this is a book you will truly enjoy and remember.

--Thea Davis