Another classic mystery from the master of the clever twist.On a summers day in 1981 a twoyearold girl Tamsin Hall was abductedduring a picnic at the famous pre... » 

Another classic mystery from the master of the clever twist.On a summers day in 1981 a twoyearold girl Tamsin Hall was abductedduring a picnic at the famous prehistoric site of Avebury in Wiltshire. Hersevenyearold sister Miranda was knocked down and killed by the abductorsvan. The girls were in the care of their nanny Sally Wilkinson.One of the witnesses to this tragic event was David Umber a Ph.D student whowas waiting at the village pub to keep an appointment with a man calledGriffith who claimed he could help Umber with his researches into the lettersof Junius the pseudonymous eighteenth century polemicist who was his Ph.Dsubject. But Griffin failed to show up and Umber never heard from him again.The twoyearold Tamsin Hall was never seen again either. The Hall familyfell apart under the strain. Sally Wilkinson the nanny wound up living withUmber whom she had met at the inquiry. But she never recovered from theincident suffered increasingly from depression and eventually committedsuicide.In the spring of 2004 retired Chief Inspector George Sharp receives a lettersigned Junius reproaching him for botching the 1981 investigation. Sharpconfronts Umber whose explanation for being at the scene of the tragedy hasalways seemed dubious. Obliged to accept Umbers denial of authorship of theletter he nonetheless forces him to join in a search for the real culprit and hence the longconcealed truth about what happened 23 years previously.It is a quest that both will later regret having embarked upon. Too late theycome to understand that some mysteries are better left unsolved. «