<i>Crime writer sleuth Donald Langham is faced with the classic locked-room conundrum in this engaging historical mystery</i><br>July, 1955. Donald Langham has interrupted his romantic break in rural Suffolk with the delectable Maria Dupre to assist a fellow writer. Alastair Endicott has requested Langham's help in discovering what's happened to his father, Edward, who seems to have disappeared without trace from inside his locked study.<br><br> Before he vanished, the elder Endicott had been researching a book on the notorious Satanist Vivian Stafford. Could the proposed biography have something to do with his disappearance? Does local resident Stafford really possess supernatural powers, as some believe?<br><br>As Langham and Dupre question those around them, it becomes clear that there have been strange goings-on in the sleepy village of Humble Barton. But is the village really haunted - or does someone merely want it to look that way? With a further shocking discovery, the case takes a disturbing new twist.
