What exactly had Sheila Fairchild seen in the middle of the night forty years ago, and what bearing could it possibly have on a recent murder? This is only one of the problems facing DCI David Webb when, against his will, he is assigned to investigate the death of a man in the town where he grew up. Smoldering resentments and old hostilities impede his inquiries as he tries to sort out facts from fancies and the truth from an intricate tissue of lies. Only after he has faced up to a traumatic incident in his own boyhood does the solution become apparent, and by the end of the case not only Webb but several prominent residents of Erlesborough have been forced to take a long, hard look at themselves. In her finest novel to date, Anthea Fraser digs deep into the wellsprings of human conduct and the confused, often conflicting feelings a man may have about people long since dead whose true relationships he is only now beginning to understand.

Genre: Mystery