Robert Barnard

"Robert Barnard, the internationally acclaimed Diamond Dagger-winning crime writer, dissects family bonds at their best and worst in this stunning novel of suspense. What an honor--to become trustee of an English stately home museum. Yorkshire Detective Inspector Charlie Peace's wife, Felicity, is initially thrilled when she's asked to join the board that oversees Walbrook Manor, an eighteenth-century mansion that's now part of a charitable trust....

A small boy, evacuated from London during the blitz, is taken in by a loving couple who treat him like their own, and who raise him to adulthood. When he returns to London as a man, he feels the need to find his original family. He uncovers a thoroughly detestable family that he knows he was part of, but he has to find out where exactly he fit in. He uncovers an old murder that he actually witnessed as a small boy.