When Cotswold bookbinder Howard Finch discovers a brittle, long-forgotten will hidden inside a 19th-century ledger, he expects little more than a pleasant historical curiosity. Instead, the document threatens to upend ownership of the grand yet fading Hawthorn Manor, the very heart of Swincombe Hollow.
Before Howard can deliver the will to the village solicitor, the man is found dead in his library with no signs of a struggle, no visible wounds, and no shortage of secrets.
With the manor’s legacy in question and the village’s loyalties shifting like mist over the hills, Howard must piece together a puzzle stitched across generations. Assisted by his irrepressibly chatty neighbor Gladys and a rain-hating cat with inconvenient instincts, Howard soon realizes: in Swincombe Hollow, the past is never truly bound and some pages are meant to stay closed.
Genre: Mystery
Before Howard can deliver the will to the village solicitor, the man is found dead in his library with no signs of a struggle, no visible wounds, and no shortage of secrets.
With the manor’s legacy in question and the village’s loyalties shifting like mist over the hills, Howard must piece together a puzzle stitched across generations. Assisted by his irrepressibly chatty neighbor Gladys and a rain-hating cat with inconvenient instincts, Howard soon realizes: in Swincombe Hollow, the past is never truly bound and some pages are meant to stay closed.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for J A Clarke's The Ledger Mystery