A Deadly Shade of Night

How do you take your tea?

The Beast of Whitherward Fell has been blamed for a great many mysterious events and gruesome murders on that wildest, perilous stretch of the Yorkshire Moors. But what, or who, is the real monster? And can there be only one that has stalked this place since the beginning of time?

Detective Inspector Ptolemy Deverell does not believe in mythical beasts or supernatural phenomena. He’s a quiet, unassuming, pragmatic fellow, who seldom falls prey to emotion. Nobody pulls the fleece over his eyes. So if anybody can shed light on the rampaging fiend behind the bloody history of this place, surely, he can.

But when the detective embarks upon three cases at once, he has no idea how tightly they are entwined, or that this tangle will lead him into the darkest part of Whitherward Fell. To face the Beast head-on.

With a lady in search of vengeance; a gentleman on a mission for truth, and a little girl waiting for justice, the detective already has his hands full. On top of everything, he— the most unromantic fellow in the world—is in love. Will he ever get around to proposing marriage to the very modern, bicycle-riding, baker-extraordinaire, Miss Lucy Greenwood? And, if he does, will she laugh in his face and try drowning him in raspberry jam?

Not only that. A ghost from his own past has returned to haunt his nightmares, and he cannot get on with his life until she’s finally at rest.

Tolly Deverell might not believe in the Beast of Whitherward Fell, but he is preyed upon by a scavenging creature that lurks in the bleakest shadows of a dream, waiting to tear him apart. The great shadow of its wingspan falls from above when he is most susceptible.

It comes to him when he’s alone in the dark.

It comes to him when all but his mind is quiet.

It comes in the deadliest shades of night.

And with words clawed into the wall, it asks,

How do you take your tea?