William Brodrick Boeken

A hugely moving and intelligent novel from the bestselling author of The Sixth Lamentation and The Gardens of the Dead, A Whispered Name reaches into the mysteries of one man's past and casts light on the long shadows war leaves behind.

An anonymous letter sent to Larkwood's Prior accuses Peter Henderson, an academic celebrity renowned for daring ideas, of a grotesque murder: the calculated killing of Jenny, his disabled partner, believed by everyone to have died peacefully two years previously from a sudden attack of cancer. But for this letter there is no evidence, no suspect and no crime. Time has moved on. Lives have been rebuilt. Grief and loss are tempered by a comforting thought: a paralysed woman, once an acclaimed dancer, had died quickly and painlessly, spared a drawn out illness; a life marked by agonising misfortune had come to a merciful end. But now Anselm has been told the truth behind the soothing lie. He must move cautiously to expose the killer and the killing. He must think of young Timothy, Jenny and Peter's son. A boy who is still learning to live without his mother. And so Anselm begins his most delicate investigation yet, unaware that Jenny's adoring father is also thinking of Timothy's future; that this urbane former army officer is haunted by the memory of torture and shoot-to-kill operations in Northern Ireland; that he remains capable of anything, if he thinks it's for the best; that he has set out to execute Peter Henderson. Death, dying and killing, however, were never so complicated.

The latest in CWA Gold dagger winner William Brodrick's much loved Father Anselm series - and Anselm faces the most difficult and troubling case of his life.

"Father Anselm, the brilliant Benedictine, receives a visit from an old friend with a dangerous story to tell - the story of a woman betrayed by time, fate, and someone close to her - someone still unknown. As a young woman, Roza Mojeska was part of an underground resistance group in Communist Poland. But after her arrest, a Stasi officer makes her a devil's bargain - and in the dark of a government prison, a terrible choice is made. Now, fifty years later, Anselm is called upon to investigate both Roza's story and a mystery dating back to the early 1980s, in the icy grip of the Cold War. And as he peels back years of history, decades of secrets, a half-century of lies, he exposes a truth that an entire generation was killed to keep hidden."--Publisher description

In THE SIXTH LAMENTATION, William Brodrick introduced Father Anselm, the barrister turned monk who found himself plunged into the tangled history of occupied Paris. Now Father Anselm is brought back to his own past, and someone else's secrets.

What should you do if the world has turned against you? When Father Anselm is asked this question by an old man at Larkwood Priory, his response, to claim sanctuary, is to have greater resonance than he could ever have imagined. For that evening the old man returns, demanding the protection of the church. His name is Eduard Schwermann and he is wanted by the police as a suspected war criminal. With her life running out, Agnes Aubret feels it is time to unburden to her granddaughter Lucy the secrets she has been carrying for so long. Fifty years earlier, Agnes had been living in Occupied Paris, a member of a small group risking their lives to smuggle Jewish children to safety - until they were exposed by a young SS Officer: Eduard Schwermann. As Anselm attempts to uncover Schwermann's past, and as Lucy's search into her grandmother's history continues, their investigations dovetail to reveal a remarkable story.

Anselm, ehemaliger Kollege der verstorbenen Strafverteidigerin Elizabeth Glendinning, erhält einen Brief von ihr, in dem sie ihn bittet, Beweise gegen einen früheren Mandanten zu sammeln. Es geht um einen Fall, in dem sie gemeinsam einen Mann namens Riley verteidigten, der obdachlose Mädchen zur Prostitution gezwungen haben soll. Anselm beginnt, die Hintergründe zu verstehen.

Eine junge Frau bringt Unruhe ins Kloster Larkwood, da der Gründer Pater Herbert an der Hinrichtung eines Unschuldigen während des Ersten Weltkriegs beteiligt gewesen sein soll. Pater Anselm ermittelt und entdeckt Ungereimtheiten, während die Klosterbrüder mit den moralischen Konsequenzen konfrontiert werden.