‘Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller’ Daily Telegraph
From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series
When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there’s more to it than that.
The key to the mystery stretches back to a highly-charged summer before the war, and back to another death. A local asylum plays a part, as do a moderately famous artist and his wife; Superintendent Williamson, now retired and loathing it; Councillor Bernie Broadbent – a man with more pies than fingers to put in them; a Cambridge don; an aristocratic unmarried mother, now gleefully drawing her old-age pension; and – to Thornhill’s surprise and growing horror – his own wife, Edith.
‘An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling‘ The Times
‘The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today’ Val McDermid
‘There is no denying Taylor’s talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries’ Time Out
From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series
When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there’s more to it than that.
The key to the mystery stretches back to a highly-charged summer before the war, and back to another death. A local asylum plays a part, as do a moderately famous artist and his wife; Superintendent Williamson, now retired and loathing it; Councillor Bernie Broadbent – a man with more pies than fingers to put in them; a Cambridge don; an aristocratic unmarried mother, now gleefully drawing her old-age pension; and – to Thornhill’s surprise and growing horror – his own wife, Edith.
‘An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling‘ The Times
‘The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today’ Val McDermid
‘There is no denying Taylor’s talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries’ Time Out
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Reviews
An absorbing read
Taylor is building up a nice fan base for his series of mysteries set in the village of Lydmouth just after the Second World War . . . DEATH'S OWN DOOR will appeal to those who love a traditional English mystery novel
Taylor's Lydmouth series is turning the classical detective story into a complex picture of our own past
Page turningly complicated plots
The most underrated crime writer in Britain today