The Mausoleum

by David Mark

Overview

When lightning strikes an ancient crypt, it exposes a devastating wartime secret in this compelling psychological thriller.

1967. In a quiet village in the wild lands of the Scottish borders, disgraced academic Cordelia Hemlock is trying to put her life back together. Grieving the loss of her son, she seeks out the company of the dead, taking comfort amid the ancient headstones and crypts of the local churchyard. When lightning strikes a tumbledown tomb, she glimpses a corpse that doesn’t belong among the crumbling bones. But when the storm passes and the body vanishes, the authorities refuse to believe the claims of a hysterical ‘outsider’.

Teaming up with a reluctant witness, local woman Felicity Goose, Cordelia’s enquiries all lead back to a former POW camp that was set up in the village during the Second World War. But not all Gilsland’s residents welcome the two young women’s interference. There are those who believe the village’s secrets should remain buried … whatever the cost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847519979
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	12/03/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Mark spent seven years as crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post and now writes full-time. A former Richard & Judy pick and Sunday Times bestseller, he is the author of nine police procedurals in the DS Aector McAvoy series and one historical novel. He lives in Northumberland with his family.

Editorial Reviews

'Deft writing, a plot filled with strange and unexpected twists, vivid characters, and a constant feeling of foreboding make this a gripping and unusual read.'

Booklist

'A quiet, unassuming crime novel, but it is one of my favourites so far this year.'

Deadly Pleasures magazine Jeff Popple

'Deft writing, a plot filled with strange and unexpected twists, vivid characters, and a constant feeling of foreboding make this a gripping and unusual read.'

Booklist

'Deft writing, a plot filled with strange and unexpected twists, vivid characters, and a constant feeling of foreboding make this a gripping and unusual read.' Booklist

'Sure to please fans of Catriona McPherson.' Kirkus Reviews

'This intricately plotted bleak story has a menacing tone.. a very British tale.' Library Journal

From the Publisher

2019-03-18
A lifetime of secrets is slowly revealed in this intricate look into past murders and present-day guilt.

October 1967 finds Cordelia Hemlock lonely and grief-stricken in the remote area of the Scottish borderlands hard by Hadrian's Wall, mourning her young son who recently died. While lying in a cemetery one day, she's approached by Felicity Goose, a local woman destined to become her lifelong friend. Cordelia and her rarely seen husband bought a house in the area where they were raising Cordelia's son, Stefan, the product of a short-lived university affair that could never end in marriage. Instead, Cordelia accepted an offer of support for Stefan and herself from a gay, highly placed government official who needed a wife for cover. The area residents' dismissal of Cordelia as a snob has softened since she lost her child. Now, when a sudden storm catches the two women in the graveyard, a lightning strike fells a tree, destroying a small crypt and revealing not only ancient bones, but the body of a much newer corpse in a dark suit. Recovering in Felicity's house, Cordelia meets a neighbor named Fairfax Duke, who agrees to go to the cemetery to see the body Felicity doesn't want to admit exists. When Fairfax doesn't return to Felicity's house, it turns out that he's been killed in a car crash. The other body has disappeared, but the police ask no questions, so Cordelia finds a new purpose in life investigating what she assumes is a murder. Since the death of his son in World War II, Fairfax had never stopped asking questions and writing the stories of everyone in the area who would talk to him, and now he's left a rich lode of information for Cordelia. Many of the people he interviewed are local, but some just never left the area after being released from a POW camp during World War II. As the story shifts from the 1960s to 2010, appalling secrets come to light, putting Cordelia in jeopardy while changing her life in unimaginable ways.

In a departure from his superlative police procedurals (Cold Bones, 2019, etc.), Mark produces a stand-alone psychological thriller, character-driven but with plenty of bizarre twists, that's sure to please fans of Catriona McPherson.

Kirkus Reviews