Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Loch of the Dead by Oscar de Muriel, read by Andy Secombe.
A mysterious woman pleads for the help of Inspectors Frey and 'Nine-Nails' McGray. Her son, illegitimate scion of the Koloman family, has received an anonymous death threat - right after learning he is to inherit the best part of a vast wine-producing estate.
In exchange for their protection, she offers McGray the ultimate cure for his sister who has been locked in an insane asylum after brutally murdering their parents: the miraculous waters that spring in a small island in the remote Loch Maree.
The island has been a sacred burial ground since the time of the druids, but the legends around it will turn out to be much darker than McGray could have expected. Death and increasingly bizarre happenings will intermingle throughout this trip to the Highlands, before Frey and McGray learn a terrible truth.
'A hugely entertaining Victorian mystery' New York Times
'I enjoyed this - properly creepy and Gothic' Ian Rankin
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
May 31, 2018 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781405935203
- File size: 402010 KB
- Duration: 13:57:31
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from February 18, 2019
In de Muriel’s excellent fourth Victorian mystery featuring the Commission for the Elucidation of Unsolved Cases Presumably Related to the Odd and Ghostly (after 2018’s A Mask of Shadows), the commission’s two members, Scottish Insp. Ian Frey and his superior, Adolphus McGray, look into a particularly creepy case. In 1873, servant Millie Fletcher gives up her baby, Benjamin, the product of an assault by Maximilian Koloman, the brother of her employer, Konrad. In 1889, Maximilian signs a document on his deathbed recognizing Benjamin as his heir and asking Konrad to reunite the boy with Millie. Shortly afterward, Millie receives a note threatening her son’s life. In return for Frey and McGray’s help in protecting Benjamin, Millie offers to cure McGray’s mentally ill sister. In search of answers, the pair travel to remote Loch Maree, the Koloman family home, which supposedly contains a healing well and which is also home to legends of Druidic rituals involving bathing in blood. There they soon have a murder to solve. De Muriel keeps the twists coming in the series’ best entry to date. Agent: Maggie Hanbury, Hanbury Agency (U.K.).
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