Legacy of Death
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
When the family butler is brutally attacked, land agent Matthew Rowsley and his wife Harriet determine to find the culprit in this gripping Victorian mystery.
With his lordship’s mental health failing, management of his grand country estate has been assigned to a group of trustees, including land agent Matthew Rowsley and his capable wife Harriet. But the smooth running of Thorncroft House is disrupted by a series of unforeseen events. Building work on the estate workers’ new cottages is halted by the discovery of Roman remains. Shortly afterwards, the family butler is brutally assaulted and left for dead. A random attack – or was he deliberately targeted?
Matters take an even more disturbing turn when Lord Croft’s long-lost cousin and heir, Julius Trescothick, arrives from Australia, ready to claim his inheritance. But is he who he claims to be … and what are his true intentions?
If they are to preserve Thorncroft House and a way of life that has continued for centuries, Matthew and Harriet must uncover the truth behind Trescothick’s identity and solve a series of interlocking mysteries.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Cutler's unremarkable sequel to 2019's The Wages of Sin, Victorian land agent Matthew Rowsley, who serves Lord Croft in the Shropshire village of Thorncroft, creates a board of trustees to look after current and long-term estate needs, as the nobleman is incapacitated due to mental illness. The board includes Rowsley's wife, Harriet, a former housekeeper, and the longtime Croft family butler, Samuel Bowman. The group has authorized construction of new homes for the estate's workers, a project disrupted when human remains from Roman times are unearthed. Meanwhile, Bowman is savagely attacked by an unknown assailant. The violence coincides with the arrival from Australia of a stranger who claims to be Croft's cousin and heir, and who wastes no time acting as if he's already the new Lord Croft. Rowsley's sleuthing is nothing special, and Cutler does little to depict class tensions or the political background of the period. Readers content with the same-old-same-old may be entertained.
