Description
Book SynopsisPeaceful Mickleburgh is the perfect English market town - or so it seems. In fact, it is a perfectly constructed façade, having successfully hidden the secrets of its inhabitants for generations. But the casual murder of a man trying to prevent an act of vandalism shatters the genteel appearance.
Parents are forced to consider whether their children could be involved, friends avoid each other''s eyes, and partners word their conversations carefully. Somebody in the community is close to the murderer - someone with a past that threatens to resurface, bringing damage and devastation to a whole community.
Trade ReviewBuilding to a highly-charged climax it shows how the placid surface of a community can hide beneath it the seeds of catastrophe. Well judged and expertly written * Irish Times *
There is not a word wasted in Margaret Yorke's deftly constructed crime novels, yet they have a hinterland greater than many novels twice the length. Her understanding of the faultlines that run through human beings is second to none * Diane Setterfield *
Margaret Yorke also has similarities to Patricia Highsmith... Her books have a quiet fatalism, rather than the terrible menace of Highsmith's stories, but are almost as frightening * Guardian *
Typical Yorke story-telling; and there is no one better at it * Birmingham Post *
What makes this novel unusual is not the common enough mindless violence but the sensitivity and insight with which Yorke explores the emotions within a small community... Subtly woven into the plot is another, darker threat, providing the surprise ending that is itself an act of violence on the reader's imagination * Daily Express *
