On compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Thomas Lynley is called back to Scotland Yard when the body of a woman is found stabbed and abandoned in an isolated London cemetery. While Lynley works on the case in London, his former colleagues Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata follow the murder trail south to the New Forest--and to an outcome that is both tragic and shocking.
The shocking conclusion of Elizabeth George's previous bestseller, WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS, saw the wife of New Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley gunned down in the street outside her home. Under arrest for the crime is a twelve-year-old boy, Joel Campbell. What possible motive could he have? What chain of events could have led such a child from the housing estates of North Kensington to the elegant streets of Belgravia with such deadly intent? The answer to these questions is a complex mixture of fate and circumstance. Abandoned (albeit involuntarily) by his parents, Joel and two siblings are dumped on the doorstep of his aunt's house. Kendra, childless and with two marriages behind her, is doing her best to turn her life around; responsibility for three troubled children is not what she had in mind. Drugs, neglect, violence and poverty are commonplace in North Kensington. Joel does his best to look out for his family, but that involves a Faustian pact. And the Devil will have his pay.
Tijdens een excursie op het landgoed Abinger Manor wordt een van de bezoekers plotseling onwel. Gelukkig zijn inspecteur Thomas Lynley en lady Helen aanwezig, die hun hulp aanbieden. Douglas Armstrong is een succesvolle zakenman. Vlak voor zijn 55e verjaardag begint zijn veel jongere vrouw donna zich vreemd te gedragen. Wordt hij door haar bedrogen? Eric Lawton pleegt zelfmoord en laar zijn vrouw Charlie verbijsterd achter. Waarom heeft hij zelfmoord gepleegd? Waarom heeft hij haar verlaten? charlie besluit op zoek te gaan naar zijn familie, maar stuit daarbij op wel heel onaangename zaken.