An English murder mystery that will have readers delighting in Goddard's wit, intelligence, skillful plotting, and perfect prose. At a wedding party in Cornwall, Chris Napier, the bride's uncle, is shocked to recognize a drunken, disheveled, and evidently distraught intruder. Chris hasn't seen his childhood friend Nicky Lanyon for more than thirty years, not since Nicky's father was hanged for the murder of Joshua Carnoweth--Chris's great-uncle and the man behind the Napier family's inherited state of affluence. Nicky's plea for his father's innocence is underscored by the method of his suicide at the close of the nuptial celebrations. Chris is now impelled to test the truth of his friend's conviction. The conduct of more than one member of his own family begins to dog his hesitant footsteps into a past gradually darkening with hints of corruption, greed, lies, child abuse, and good old-fashioned revenge.
