Set in 1919, the inhabitants of the village of Broughton Underhill, on the edge of the Black Country are slowly healing from the effects of the war, as the soldiers return. Among them is former police sergean and ex-army sergeant Herbert Readon who feels compelled to find out what really happened on the night Marianne Wentworth was found drowned at the beginning of the Great War.
The Wentworth family had not always lived in the gloomy rectory at Broughton, they had previously lived in a pleasant house in Worcester but that had been when Mama had been alive. But following the death of Marianne, the day the music stopped, Amy, Nella and Grandy (Eleanor), live in the cold world of Francis Wentworth. But now William was coming home and that surely is a cause for celebration.
Herbert’s investigations into the death of Marianne Wentworth meet with surprising resistance from the locals and with an outright ‘just the matter be’ from her family. But Herbert can’t let it be, happening on the eve of war he feels that not enough time was spent uncovering the events that led to her death. When a maid is found murdered in exactly the same spot Radon is stirred on by a possible link between the two cases.
Creating a picture of the effects of war on a village, and family tragedy, this is a marvellous book. And is highly recommended
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Lizzie Hayes