The Bottom Line: This mystery partially set in 1930s England is a near-perfect evening companion. Highly recommended.
Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories.
One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace.
He is never found, and the family is torn apart, the house abandoned.
Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as a novelist.
Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather’s house in Cornwall.
While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old Edevane estate—now crumbling and covered with vines.
Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone…yet more present than ever.
Without question, Morton is one of the most literary “genre” writers working today. No detail is spared in her exquisite wordcraft, and yet the prose remains tight and economical. Every room, garden and emotion is a full sensory experience, transporting readers back in time in a wholly convincing fashion.
