HUNGRY DEATH
by Robin Blake
Coroner Titus Cragg is called upon to investigate a brutal multiple murder.
No one is willing to show Cragg the way to the farm of Billy Kidd, but when he finally arrives, he finds a woman with her throat cut along with two little girls and their brothers, all dead. Even the family horse has been shot. In a doghouse Cragg discovers a nonverbal boy and a dog; the body of Kidd hangs in the barn. It looks as if Kidd killed his family and himself, but Cragg has doubts when he learns of the strange religious views Kidd and his neighbors held. On his way to see Kidd’s landlord, magistrate John Blackburne of Orford Hall, Cragg meets Dr. Luke Fidelis, his best friend and frequent partner in investigations, who’s visiting the hall at the request of a Frenchman he once studied with. Soon he and Cragg are investigating the body of a young woman found buried under Blackburne’s hothouse. Her remains are surprisingly well-preserved considering that they’re probably 50 years old. Cragg questions Kidd’s brother, old and new enemies, and people who might be able to identify the body. The answers to all the deaths may lie in a strange religion and past misdeeds that challenge Cragg to be exceptionally clever to ferret out the truth in one of his most difficult cases.
Odd 18th-century mores provide a fitting backdrop for a complex puzzle.