Well-known actress Caroline Fawley has given up her successful stage and television career for love and life at Alderley, an elegant country home "bought" for her by her married "friend," international business titan Marius Fleetwood. Despite the inquisitive villagers, Caroline is happy and the world is good...until a mysterious young man backpacking through the countryside arrives at the door. He says his name is Peter Bagshaw, but Caroline can't help noticing his physical resemblance to Marius. Is he Marius' son?
What else has Marius hidden from Caroline?
Who is Marius anyway
Is everything about him a lie?
Then a murder occurs....
As always in a Barnard mystery, the fun is in the details, the characters, the twists. With big houses, wealth, opera, and obsessive devotion among the ingredients, Barnard has cooked up another witty, richly nuanced novel worthy of the crime-writing star that he is.

"In this superbly written suspense novel from British author Barnard, ...former soccer star Matt Harper, now a television and radio personality, is the new owner of Elderholm, one of a small street of sturdy old houses in Leeds. As he and his remodeling contractor take a look around the attic, they come upon the skeleton of a toddler-sized child. The deeper Matt and Det. Sgt. Charlie Peace probe, the more certain they become that the child met its tragic death in 1969, the same fateful summer Matt had spent in this very community. ...Barnard quickly pulls his readers into the plot and holds them there right through the final pages, leaving them, along with his hero, pondering further possibilities.
Publishers Weekly