Murder at Somerhay Park

An aria can fill a room. It cannot prove who was there.
At a private opera week on a Sussex estate, the music is meant to be the sensation. Instead, threats to the production draw Julian Ashcombe and Clara Bennett into a quarrel over credit, contracts and one man's control of the future.
Then Stephen Armitage, the week's indispensable organizer, is found murdered. During the fatal interval, a celebrated aria was heard—and several people insist its performance places them safely elsewhere. But who was singing? Where did the sound come from? And what could a listener truly recognize?
As Clara follows the rehearsal routines and Julian tests the company's polished accounts, music becomes a maze of competing stories. A soprano's threat, missing estate funds and a conductor's altered score each point towards a different scandal. Behind them lies a personal struggle over authorship and the right to be named.
In a house where every cue matters, one final mark may change the meaning of the performance. The encore, if it comes, will be no cause for applause.