Louise is studying at Oxford University when she meets Johnny Longmarch. As they grow closer Louise learns more about Johnny’s tragic past, that he saw his own mother being murdered, as well as his vast wealth, culminating in ownership of a grand house and its surrounding estate. After they marry, Louise moves on to the Tressy estate, where secrets lurk and the killings are about to start again. The prologue had me gripped, as we are introduced to the story via the shadows of horrid events that haunt Tressy. Written in a reflective tone, the rest of the novel takes you through Louise and Johnny’s meeting, their marriage and their new life on the estate that holds a great many ghosts. Tidbits of information are drip-fed to you throughout, mini cliff-hangers at the end of chapters to keep you turning to the next one. The interweaving of the occult, initially setting the tone with Louise’s ex-boyfriend Pascoe, the talk of ghosts and the reference to the mysterious folklore society who performed a strange pagan ritual on the night Johnny’s mother was murdered, all adds to the tension and the atmosphere of unease that keeps the reader on their toes. This is a great thriller, with twists and turns and an ending that I didn’t see coming.
Summer 1992. Young graduate Louise Reeves marries rich landowner Johnny Longmarch and becomes mistress of the magnificent house Tressy on the Rainecourt Estate in picturesque Oxfordshire. Life seems perfect but there are serpents in this Eden. Tressy is a cursed place with a dark past, haunted by the ghost of the thirteenth-century, wife-killing crusader Black Tancred. In 1978, Johnny’s mother Delphine was horrifically murdered in one of the gardens of the house. It was assumed that she was the sixth victim of the notorious serial killer, the Cotswold Slasher, who was never caught and still roams the surrounding countryside. But there were other suspects too - her husband, Henry Longmarch, and the twelve members of a folklore society who performed a strange pagan ritual at Tressy on the day of the murder. Louise befriends the ethereal Una Rainecourt, last member of the aristocratic family that originally owned Tressy. But Una has a terrible secret linking her to Delphine’s murder. And the killings are about to start again…
