At once a compelling murder mystery and a moving exploration of love and grief, critically acclaimed author Nicola Upson’s eighth Josephine Tey mystery is a force to be reckoned with.
In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs.
Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house—now much changed—and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women’s lives hid a much darker secret.
Nicola Upson won an Escalator/Arts Council England Award in 2006 for her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey—one of the leading authors of Britain’s age of crime writing. Her research for the books included many conversations with people who lived through the period and who knew Josephine Tey well, most notably Sir John Gielgud. The book was dramatized by BBC Scotland. She has also written a number of nonfiction books, including Mythologies: the Sculpture of Helaine Blumenfeld and In Good Company: A Snapshot of Theatre and the Arts.
Helen Lloyd is a British actor and voice artist who recorded her first voice-over at the age of fourteen. Since then, she has spent much of her life interpreting other people’s words and bringing characters to life. A classically trained actor, she has performed with many of Britain’s leading repertory theaters, as well as at the Edinburgh Festival, the Roundhouse, and on the West End.