Farley's Bend - E-book - ePub

This is the sequel to Bobby Shafter, with the same central characters. But while Bobby Shafter is a love story, flavoured with affectionate observations of English habits and attitudes in the 1950s, this is a murder mystery. It starts with a grim discovery at the side of the road. An accident? That's what Sergeant Laker thinks, but Bobby - now Robert, respected pillar of the community - disagrees.
His wife Elizabeth reluctantly concedes that he's right. Eager to help, Robert and Elizabeth invite Inspector Jenkins and WPC Burrell ("Call me Virginia") to set up an operations room in their library, and even to occupy two of their bedrooms. For Robert this is an opportunity in more ways than one. Elizabeth's mother walks out on her French lover and turns up penniless on the Shafters' doorstep. She soon makes friends and opens the door to a side of their sleepy Yorkshire village that Robert and Elizabeth had never suspected.
How could they not have known that a coven met in Dibbocks Wood every full moon? Or that the ruins of Framby Abbey retained a fabled hoard of treasure, as well as memories of an ancient wrong?As the field of suspects widens Robert and Elizabeth are in covert competition with the police to break the case. The path to the truth winds through a maze of treasure-hunting, witchcraft, adultery, blackmail, prejudice, superstition and unforgiven grievances.
The ending is guaranteed to surprise.