When the half-dressed body of Angie Robinson is found strangled in the lay-by on a lonely moorland road, it seems that her murder is the result of a random attack, for Angie has led a blameless life, with no interests other than her untiring support for the local women's hospital.

But there are too many apparently unrelated elements in the case for DCI Gil Mayo to be satisfied with that explanation. For one thing, an anonymous letter has been

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1930. When a body is discovered on the premises of the newly-established Maxstead Court School for Girls, Detective Inspector Herbert Reardon is called in to investigate. His wife Ellen having just accepted a job as French teacher, Reardon is alarmed to find the school a hotbed of scandalous secrets, suppressed passions, petty jealousies and wanton schoolgirl cruelty. As he pursues his enquiries, it becomes clear that the dead woman was not who -...

February, 1927. The remains of an unidentified middle aged man are found beneath the snow in the grounds of Maxtead Court, home of the wealthy Scroope family. Meanwhile, Margaret Rees Talbot is preparing for her wedding to the Rev Symon Scroope, to the disapproval of some residents of the small market town of Folbury, who think its too soon after the death of Margarets father Osbert, found drowned in his bath a few months previously. An accident or...