To this day the low thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldales lushgreen valleys. Three hundred years ago as legend goes the frightenedYorkshire villagers ... » 

To this day the low thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldales lushgreen valleys. Three hundred years ago as legend goes the frightenedYorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey where theydhidden to escape the ravages of Cromwells raiders.Now into Keldales pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes ScotlandYard Inspector Thomas Lynley the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with theredoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers Lynley has been sent to solve asavage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat unlovelyRoberta Teys has been found in her best dress an axe in her lap seated in theold stone barn beside her fathers headless corpse. Her first and last wordswere I did it. And Im not sorry.Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldales dark labyrinth ofsecret scandals and appalling crimes they uncover a shattering series ofrevelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valleyand intheir own lives as well. «