Dunne, June 2004, 23.95, 272 pp.
ISBN 0312328745
In the isolated, insular village of Colin Polyts in Oxfordshire, England, the new owners of the manor house Shelley and June Myles give a masquerade party with guests wearing cavalier and roundhead costumes. Attending the party is parapsychologist professor and television personality Nathaniel Gye and his journalist wife Kathryn. From the moment she arrives at the manor, Kathryn senses an evil, which surfaces with the death of a servant, Tracey Penshan.
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The death is ruled an accident. However, Shelley asks Nat to help his wife who believes she killed Tracey in another life and in this one. June admits she believes this because hypnotherapist Dr. Cardoc Owens hypnotized her and took her back to a former life where she killed a woman who was trying to take away her lover. Nat meets Cardoc and concludes the man is nothing but a charlatan, which Nat tells Shelley. Not long afterward someone kills Cardoc. Nat proves that Penshan was murdered. Unable to let well enough alone, Nate tries to discover who the killer is and finds himself in a race against time to stop a third murder from occurring.
The gothic atmosphere of the village and the main house contributes to the foreboding feeling that something terrible is happening at TRIPLETREE manor house. There are plenty of suspects who wanted the victims dead. The protagonist becomes obsessed by the homicides, trying to figure out who the killer is so he can stop him before he kills again. The hero doesn't believe in psychic power and spends much of his time, like Randy thee Great debunking Charlatans. Derek Wilson has written a very vivid and entertaining crime thriller.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
