I am an enormous fan of these West Country detective yarns that intriguingly always weave a past mystery with the present, often through some archaeological dig or other and star the lovely black DI Wesley Peterson. Sadly, in this tale, he develops a roving eye and his subsequent guilt and angst made him a less likeable character, but the plot is as fascinating as ever, and I do highly recommend the whole series. This is the eighth.
The brutal massacre of the Harford family at Potwoolstan Hall in Devon in 1985 shocked the country and passed into local folklore. And when a journalist researching the case is murdered 20 years later, the horror is reawakened. 16th-century Potwoolstan Hall, now a New Age healing centre, is reputed to be cursed because of the crimes of its builder, and it seems that inheritance of evil lives on as DI Wesley Peterson is faced with his most disturbing case yet. As more people die violently, Wesley needs to discover why a young woman has transformed a dolls house into a miniature reconstruction of the massacre scene. And could the solution to his case lie across the Atlantic Ocean, in the ruined remains of an early English settlement in Virginia USA? When the truth is finally revealed, it turns out to be as horrifying as it is dangerous.
