Book description
In the 1870s, the future Inspector Brunt is on his way home after a
reprimand when he has a disturbing encounter with George Ludlam, an
enigmatic, taciturn man, intent on reaching one of Derbyshire's more
remote villages. Then news reaches HQ that this man's arrival has
terrified some of the villagers. Who is he? Who used he to be? And why
has he come back? Brunt is sent to carry out an investigation, thus
distracting him from the pursuit of Amelia Pilkington, a confidence
trickster who lives off the hydropathic society of the time, but the
affair becomes public when a woman is murdered and George Ludlam is the
obvious suspect. Few readers will succeed in beating Sergeant Nadin and
Constable Brunt to the solution to the mystery. 'A powerful period piece
against a backcloth of crude murder, the coming of age of an unusual
constable, the subtle deflation of a pompous inspector, plus a
mid-Victorian con-woman who can melt a heart of stone. The author's own
concluding confidence trick is not bad either.' Observer 'An
atmospherically gripping historical chiller' The Times John Buxton
Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war service in
the army he became an Inspector of schools, before retiring in 1970 to
take up full-time writing. Hilton wrote two books on language teaching
as well as being a prolific crime writer - his works include the
Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt
series, as well as the Inspector Mosley series as John Greenwood.
