Lady Wainwright presides over the gothic gloom at Belting, in mourning for her two sons lost in the Second World War. Long afterwards a stranger arrives at Belting, claiming to be the missing David Wainwright - who was not killed after all, but held captive for years in a Russian prison camp. With Lady Wainwright's health fading, her inheritance is at stake, and the family is torn apart by doubts over its mysterious long-lost son.

Belting is shadowed by suspicion and intrigue - and then the first body is found. This atmospheric novel of family secrets, first published in 1964, is by a winner of the CWA Diamond Dagger.