London, 1955. Three bodies are found in a London house – but when the police search for the murder weapon, vital evidence is destroyed. One of the victims is former society beauty Georgina Gresham, prime suspect in the notorious murder of her husband, James, almost thirty years earlier. Beside her lies the bodies of her brother Edmund and housekeeper Ada. But there is a link with the past. In the 1890s, in a beautiful garden, three children played together. Their lives were secure, their future certain – until the youngest child was found with fatal head injuries…

Gripping, insidious exhumation of the secret lives of three elderly recluses…Time past evoked so strongly you can taste it. Intelligent, absorbing and highly accomplished. She may remind you of the best, but her talent is all her own. – Literary Review

 I urge everyone toward this offbeat, literate, wonderfully imagined novel…Tightly written, completely true to period, quietly horrifying – Poisoned Pen (USA)

A remarkably skilled first novel, told through three narrators flashing back from the 1950s to the First World War. Works as both a locked-room mystery and a nugget of social history. Great promise – Mike Ripleys Crime Guide, Daily Telegraph.

Wilson delivers a superb, debut novel thats more literary fiction than genre mystery. With delicious stealth, Wilson reveals a chilling, amoral and degenerative murderer, whose true nature only becomes apparent to the reader in small, subtle increments. Told in three alternating first-person narratives the story maintains the suspense to the last page…Wilson presents a tour de force reminiscent of Barbara Vine. Publishers Weekly

This is a cunning book. It creeps up on the reader like someone pursuing a friend down a street with a view to patting them on the back and saying hello but instead giving them a heart attack…This is a deceptively simple and compelling tale where the pathos is the fuel for real suspense. **** Sunday Express

 In her debut novel Laura Wilson weaves a spellbinding and atmospheric tale that recreates vivid pictures of period living. And with the ventriloquist skill of the truly imaginative writer, she gets under the skin of her narrators to produce a haunting tragedy of damaged and distorted lives. Manchester Evening News

 An exciting debut, and leaves me eager to read Wilsons next book. Donna Leon in the Sunday Times