The Devil's Chair

by Priscilla Masters

Overview

DI Alex Randall and coroner Martha Gunn search for a missing child, but their investigation is compromised by local superstitions and beliefs
In the peaceful setting of the National Trust near Church Stretton, south of Shrewsbury, Tracey Walsh drives herself and her four-year-old daughter, Daisy, up the remote Burway in the early hours of the morning, tragically loses control of her car and crashes into the valley below.

Tracey is rushed to hospital, but where is Daisy? She has vanished, provoking an intense police search of the area around the Devil’s Chair, land that is rife with legends and strange stories of witchcraft, sorcery and unexplained disappearances. Detective Inspector Alex Randall, the senior investigating officer, soon admits to coroner Martha Gunn that he is baffled by the case.

Alex and Martha must sift through fact and fiction, folklore and reality in their search for answers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847518347
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	12/13/2017
Series:	A Martha Gunn Mystery , #5
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Priscilla Masters is the author of the successful 'Martha Gunn' series, as well as the 'Joanna Piercy' novels and a series of medical mysteries. She lives near the Shropshire/Staffordshire border, works part-time as a respiratory nurse in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and has two grown-up sons and one grandson.

Editorial Reviews

2014-07-02
Afour-year-old child vanishes so completely that rumor has it the devil tookher.Drunken Tracy Walsh has an argument with her boyfriend, Neil Mansfield;snatches her screaming daughter, Daisy, from her bed; and takes off up theBurway toward the Devil's Chair, an area of England long associated withwitchcraft and strange happenings. Early the next morning, an unidentifiedcaller reports a crashed car with a woman inside. Tracy is rushed to thehospital in critical condition, but a massive search turns up no trace of Daisysave one of her slippers. Leading the case is DI Alex Randall, whose wife ismentally ill. He's made coroner Martha Gunn his sounding board on tough caseseven as they fight their attraction for each other. The police leave no stoneunturned. Re-examining the empty cottage from which the emergency call wasmade, they find another slipper that hadn't been there when they firstsearched. The owner of the cottage, who's been out of the country, has acheckered history: Years before she'd been accused of murdering her entirefamily with poisonous mushrooms. Neil, always much more loving and engaged withDaisy than her mother was, is having an affair with a client who desperately wantsa child. When Tracy dies, her estranged family takes a sudden interest in thebeautiful Daisy because it appears they might make some money from her tragicstory. The enigmatic clues someone is providing the police lead nowhere untilMartha dredges up an old memory that will help crack the mystifying case.Masters (Smoke Alarm,2012, etc.) provides another entertaining procedural whose twists will keep youguessing.

Kirkus Reviews