Pre-numbered label used for registration.

paperback
501pp
published, 1988

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Why should distinguished Edwardian Cabinet minister Edwin Strafford resign at the height of his parliamentary career? Why does the woman he loves so suddenly and coldly reject him? Why, seventy years later, should people go to such lengths—even as far as murder—to prevent the truth from being revealed?

Martin Radford, history graduate, disaffected and unemployed, leaps at the chance to get to the island of Madeira and begin the hunt for a solution to the intriguing secret of Edwin Stafford's fall from grace. However, his seeming good fortune turns to nightmare as his investigation triggers a bizarre and violent train of events which remorselessly entangles him and those who believed they had escaped the spectre of crimes long past but never paid for...

FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Paul Shelley's reading is sensitive and sets the tone for this tale of a life gone hideously wrong. Twenty-six years after Edwin Strafford's death, historian Martin Radford is challenged by a whimsical, wealthy, and elderly South African now living in Strafford's home in Madeira to find out why his life did not fulfill its promise. Radford learns that nothing is academic about the life and death of Strafford, Member of Parliament, British Consul in Madeira, and one-time colleague of Winston Churchill and Lloyd George. People are still protecting the secrets that Radford is seeking, and at least one of them is willing to murder to keep them. Shelley adjusts the pitch and inflection of his voice and the pacing of his words to portray a variety of characters: the eager, honest, self-confident young Strafford and the weary, cynical World War I veteran whom he becomes; the cold, evil villain; the charming seductress; and the bluff, good-natured Churchill. Recommended for most mystery collections.

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