Writing The Keeper of Secrets was such a pleasure that I was delighted when Allison and Busby, perhaps encouraged by some very kind reviews, asked me to write a second novel featuring Tobias Campion, the parson in the little village of Moreton St Jude's.
His dear friends, Maria Beckles and Dr Edmund Hansard, are married and Tobias himself is looking for a wife. Whether he finds one you will have to read the book to find out.
It will not surprise my regular readers, however, that he finds a body.
Tobias believes the drowned man might have been able to shed some light on the disappearance of the late Lord Chase's missing heir. Everyone else believes Hugo to be dead, but his mother clings to the idea that he has somehow survived the skirmish in the Peninsula War where he was last seen.
Tobias is determined to find the truth, even if it means leaving his parishioners and going on his travels, this time to London and then further afield.
Once again I was positively forced to re-read Jane Austen's novels, and to immerse myself in the architecture and fashions of the period… what a strain being a writer!
All I can hope is that you enjoy reading Shadow of the Past as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Allison & Busby
25 August 2008
Cracking… streets ahead of most historical crime fiction.
Andrew Taylor, author of The American Boy