Strange Images of Death (Detective Joe Sandilands Series #8) »

Barbara Cleverly is a former teacher and a graduate of Durham University who now lives in Cambridge. Her debut, The Last Kashmiri Rose, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2002.

In a Provence chateau, 1926, a murder and a missing child echo centuries-old crimes.

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

What Cleverly has written is a cunning variation on the country-house whodunit, with its formula of gathering fractious individuals in an intimate setting and closely observing them to detect the killer. While the tone of the narrative often slips into archness and the characters fall into types, Cleverly is a great strategist, and this intricately plotted mystery is one of her best.