When their holiday abroad fails to materialise, Daniel Kind takes his partner Miranda on holiday to the Lake District where he once holidayed with his father. Unexpectedly, Miranda falls in love with the area and in particular with Tarn Cottage. Following an unpleasant incident with her boss, Miranda states that she is tired of their London life and suggested that they sell up in London and move to Tarn Cottage. The relationship between Daniel and Miranda is in its early stages and the one thing that so attracts Daniel to her is her spontaneity. So Daniel - an Oxford Don and historian who is never spontaneous - is carried away with her enthusiasm and they buy the cottage, give up their jobs and move to the Lake District.
It all sounds pretty idyllic, except Daniel has failed to inform Miranda that the cottage they have bought was the home of Barry Gilpin. Gilpin was suspected of the savage murder of a young tourist, whose body was found on an ancient pagan site on the fell known as the Sacrifice Stone. Barry, who had Asperger's Syndrome, was found dead that same night at the bottom of a quarry. With the prime suspect dead, the case was closed. But Daniel had played with Barry and counted him as a friend - and he cannot believe that Barry would do this terrible thing.
Daniel believes that a historian is a detective and starts asking questions about the circumstances surrounding the murder, but no-one takes kindly to his investigations - not the villagers and not Miranda. Simultaneously (with what Miranda calls Daniel's stirring) DCI Hannah Scarlett - who worked with Daniel’s father, former Inspector Ben Kind, when he was in charge of the murder for which Barry was blamed - has just accepted a job to re-open some unsolved Cold Cases, and out of the blue the task force receive an anonymous call about the murder.
The book is rich in characters and the exploration of relationships: Daniel is keen to learn more of his father, who had left his mother and his sister Louise for another woman, severing all contact with his children; Hannah's relationship with bookseller Marc Amos who has a jealous nature, and that of Tash and Simon Dumelow, who has taken on the mantle of the local Squire. In such a tight-knit community, if there is some doubt as to the guilt of Barry Gilpin, then who did it?
This was one book where I appreciated a prologue. Normally I do not see the point of them, but in this book it worked really well, and was I think very necessary to the story.
To my mind this is Martin's best book to date and I heartily hope that this
is the start of a series ,as although the murder was dealt with in a very satisfactory
way, I feel that there is much to discover regarding the relationships of some
of the characters involved. Very highly recommended.
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Lizzie Hayes
Martin Edwards is the author of the Harry Devlin books of which there are seven
in the series. He has also written a psychological suspense novel entitled Take
My Breath Away, and has edited several short story collections.