Superintendent Perry Trethowan was enjoying a peaceful motoring holiday in North Yorkshire when he and his wife, Jan, had a strange encounter in a country pub. The seemingly unremarkable elderly spinster who introduced herself as Miss Edith Wing, a retired schoolmistress, proceeded to produce form her capacious blue handbag a yellowing manuscript – and claimed that it was part of an undiscovered novel by one of the Brontë sisters. Was it a clever forgery, or the literary sensation of the century?

What started out as a harmless holiday diversion for the superintendent turned into a hunt for a vicious attacker as both Miss Wing and Perry himself found themselves in deadly danger.

‘You can count on a Barnard mystery being witty, intelligent and a joy to read’ Publishers Weekly

‘One of our most original and versatile bloodspillers’ Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘Delicious . . . an appetising entertainment’ New York Times