It is mid-December and Henry Rathbone travels to the Dreghorn family manor house near Ullswater. But despite the festive season and the beautiful surroundings, this is not a happy occasion; he is going to comfort the family following the death of his friend, the master of the house [Judah Dreghorn]. It seems that Judah Dreghorn slipped while crossing a stream on the grounds of the estate in the middle of the night, and drowned. And when Henry arrives, he finds that there is more than a widow's grief to contend with. Ashton Gower, recently released from jail, is slandering Judah's name, claiming that he was wrongfully imprisoned for forging the deeds to the estate that the Dreghorns now own. Gower insists that his family rightfully owns the estate and that the deeds were genuine. It seems preposterous to Henry that Judah, a judge in the local court, could be accused of sending an innocent man to prison and blackening his reputation in order to steal his inheritance. To Henry and the two remaining Dreghorn brothers, also returning to the Lakes for Christmas, Judah's mysterious death and Gower's outrageous claims seem inextricably linked. Is Gower a murderer as well as a liar? Or could the life-long idolisation of a close friend and older brother be blinding them all to the truth?
Author
Anne Perry (born Juliet Hulme) was an English author of historical detective fiction, best known for her Thomas Pitt and William Monk series. In 1954, at the age of fifteen, she was convicted of participating in the murder of her friend's mother. She changed her name to "Anne Perry" after serving a five-year sentence. Her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published under this name in 1979. Her works generally fall into one of several categories of genre fiction, including historical murder mysteries and detective fiction. Many of them feature a number of recurring characters, most importantly Thomas Pitt, who appeared in her first novel, and amnesiac private investigator William Monk, who first appeared in her 1990 novel The Face of a Stranger. As of 2003, she had published 47 novels, and several collections of short stories. Her story "Heroes," which first appeared the 1999 anthology Murder and Obsession, edited by Otto Penzler, won the 2001 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. She was included as an entry in Ben Peek's Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, a novel exploring the nature of truth in literature. Series contributed to: . Crime Through Time . Perfectly Criminal . Malice Domestic . The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories . Transgressions . The Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories
