Amy Myers – författare

Jack Colby is delighted when his famous artist friend Giovanni pops in on his way to paint a 1930s racing car. Jack waves him goodbye, but later that day Giovanni calls him with unexpected news. He has been arrested for murder! Jack investigates and finds that nothing is as it seems - except for the danger he faces as he draws close to the truth.

'The end of the old world' people said about the long hot summer of 1914. It was the last season of optimism, of certainty about the future as the sun set on the Edwardian age. That summer Aunt Tilly comes to stay with her brother the Rector and his four lively daughters in the sleepy Sussex village of Ashden. Aunt Tilly's visit sparks off a chain of events which threatens to split Ashden apart, in which Agnes Pilbeam, the Rectory palourmaid, and her sweetheart Jamie find themselves bewilderingly caught up.Then in August the lamps go out all over Europe and war bursts open the straitjacket of rural village life. The war will bring tragedy, change and love as private torments and struggles are subjected to the greater need. The challenge will prove too much for some and the making of others.

March 1915. Caroline Lilley's fiancé, Reggie, is away at the Front and Caroline gives up her job and returns home at this request. Frustrated in her desire to help the war effort, she throws herself into saving the harvest by organising the village women - and runs up against Reggie's mother, the formidable Lady Hunney. Caroline's sister Felicia departs to become and ambulance driver on the Western Front and Phoebe and George eagerly await their chance to leave the Village. The mood in Ashden changes as it becomes apparent that this is going to be a war unlike any other.

Christmas 1917, and as the Lilley family gathers at the Rectory in the Sussex village of Ashden, the mood is far from festive. But while the sisters face heartache and the new year brings fresh tragedy, the Rectory opens its doors to a new world, its inhabitants strengthened by the grief and happiness shared during the long years of war.

It is up to Tom Wasp to find out what links an obscure Elizabethan actor with a slew of nineteenth century deaths in this absorbing and whimsical whodunit.