A blasphemous inscription spray-pointed on its ancient, hallowed walls was the first sign that something was amiss at Angleby Cathedral. Then came the body in Little St. Ulf's tomb: a murdered and mutilated choirboy, his wounds forming the Star of David, in grotesque parody of Little St. Ulf's himself, a child murdered 840 years before. Already the malignant strains of anti-Semitism are stirring in the tiny town of Angleby. "Ritual murder!" trumpets the rabble, into the media maw. Pressed by explosive circumstance, Detective Inspector Ben Jurnet first looks to the victim for answers: a quiet boy with a paper route and secrets to burn. Even the cathedral's august Dean seems more concerned with the holy sanctuary than with the devil's work below. And the choirmaster himself does not believe in the reality of evil. But within these sacred precincts, evil has indeed found purchase. And Jurnet must act quickly—before murder stains the cathedral again . . . Winner...

Bullen Hall, a stately home in rural Norfolk where Anne Boleyn spent her childhood, is desperately in need of repair and extra funding. A new curator, Chad Shelden, is brought in to do the job, and to write the biography of Laz Appleyard, a hero in the Hungarian fight against communism and ancestor of the current residents of the hall. But, shortly after his arrival, the young, romantic and artistic Shelden is found dead in the moat, apparently having fallen from the roof before being attacked by eels in the water. No one suspects murder - at least not until the results of the autopsy come in. Fleeting passions, incest, present conflicts and family reputations are all compelling motives -- but are they enough to drive anyone to murder someone they've just met? It's up to Detective Inspector Ben Jurnet to unravel the truth from among the dark stories surrounding Bullen Hall.

"I stood outside the Cross Keys feeling the way I imagine the Pope feels when he arrives in a new country and the first thing he does is go down on his kneeds and kiss the ground: humble and at the same time triumphant." Great writing about childhood can do much more than evoke a particular time and place; it can illuminate the universal experience of being a child in an adult's world—up to the moment when the child crosses the line between innocence and experience. For Sylvie Haymon, that moment came at the age of ten, in the home of her nursemaid's family, who lived opposite the Cross Keys pub in the tiny, staggeringly poor village of Salham St. Awdry, just four miles from her parents' comfortable house in Norwich. Sylvie had grown accustomed to living in two separate worlds—the respectable English home of her well-educated, well-behaved parents, who left the childrearing to a nursemaid named Maud Fenner, and the irresistibly dirty,...

In The Quivering Tree, Sylvia Haymon continues the poignant and perceptive memoirs she began in her acclaimed Opposite the Cross Keys. Following her father's death and her mother's subsequent decision to move from East Anglia to London, twelve-year-old Sylvia discovers independence for the first time when she becomes a boarder at the home of two spinster schoolteachers. Sylvia takes up residence in a tiny but beloved garret room in Chandos House, under the protection of the gangly aspen tree that shadows her only window. There she encounters the previously alien emotions and experiences that accompany the beginnings of adolescence. To help—or hinder—Sylvia through these tumultuous times is the household's cast of eccentric characters: the diminutive, self-effacing mathematics teacher Miss Gosse; her companion, the elegant Miss Locke, a vivacious history mistress who clearly loves the beautiful Sylvia in her own way; and Mrs. Benyon, their...

It is Easter in the Norfolk town of Angleby, and in the bustling Market Place three crucifixes with life-size effigies have been set up to mark the season. But the busy crowds are more concerned with the concert soon to be given by the pop-group Second Coming, whose lead singer is a local boy made good. To his own surprise, Detective-Inspector Ben Jurnet finds himself jammed into the auditorium with a mass of ecstatic teenagers. But this night of glory ends in bizarre tragedy. As dawn breaks, a god of a different kind hangs naked and dead on the centre cross in the Market Place. As Jurnet pursues his investigations, he begins to realize that the evidence points to an answer even more astonishing than the grotesque killing itself. 'Brilliantly plotted skilfully woven tale . . . Clues are deliberately and cleverly planted . . . Ms Haymon's writing is stylish, sensitive, and often tartly perceptive about changing social attitudes'...