Garden of Thorns

First print-published by Berkley Publishing Group, 1992

Mark Owen and Hilary Chase, who met at the excavation of a medieval Scottish priory in Dust to Dust, get back together in Fort Worth, Texas, his home town.

Hilary is working at a museum, curating a set of medieval artifacts recovered from the Nazis by famous explorer and writer Arthur Coburg. Only when he recently died did the existence of the artifacts come to light. Now his much younger wife, Dolores, wants to sell them to the museum.

Mark is helping British archaeologist Jenny Galliard excavate the Coburgs' eerie Victorian house, Osborne, a place scarred by two unsolved Jack-the-Ripper style murders.

The emotional scars of Hilary's past are still healing, much to Mark's sympathy and frustration combined. Putting together a relationship is hard enough without being drawn unwillingly into the dark secrets of the Coburg family.

No surprise Osborne is haunted. But Mark and Hilary are dismayed to find that Jenny Galliard is also haunted, by a mystery that dates not only back to World War II, but into medieval times.

A killer is still walking the shadows of Osborne House. Will Mark and Hilary survive long enough to find the solution to crimes both recent and distant, let alone long enough to find each other?