Through the years of success in Hollywood composing music for the world's most lauded films, Chris always promised his wife they would return to the Yorkshire Dales one day. Now, after his wife's death, Chris feels he must not forget his promise. Back in the Dales, he buys Kilnsgate House, an old mansion deep in the country that will allow him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow him to compose his piano sonata. He then learns that the house was the scene of a murder in the 1950s. The former owner, a prominent doctor named Ernest Arthur Fox, was allegedly poisoned by his beautiful and much younger wife Grace, and that she, the convicted murderer was one of the last women hanged in England. He finds himself increasingly distracted by the events of sixty years ago, and sets out to discover what really happened.
From New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson comes this mesmerizing story-within-a-story about a man pulled into a murder from the past—and his quest to uncover the truth. Quietly reeling from the death of his beloved wife, Chris Lowndes decides to return to the Yorkshire Dales after twenty-five successful years spent in Hollywood composing film scores. He purchases Kilnsgate House, a charming old mansion deep in the country, but something about the place disturbs him. His unease intensifies when he learns Kilnsgate was once the scene of a sensational murder. More than fifty years earlier, prominent doctor Ernest Arthur Fox was poisoned there, allegedly by his beautiful and much younger wife, Grace, who was subsequently tried, condemned, and hanged for the crime. His curiosity piqued, Chris decides to investigate, and the more he discovers, the more convinced he becomes of Grace's innocence. Despite warnings to leave it be, his quest for the truth is soon leading him through dark shadows of the past . . . and into a strange web of secrets that lie perilously close to the present. A complex, multi-layered thriller, Before the Poison is one of Peter Robinson's most brilliant novels—and one readers won't soon forget. "A gripping tale that brings to mind not only old-time Hollywood but also British 'golden age' storytelling in the Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier tradition."—Wall Street Journal
|