You Yet Shall Die

Dr Nicolas Harper is being buried in an English country churchyard, in a grave beside that of his wife. There is a stranger among the mourners at his funeral, a young woman in a yellow coat. Afterwards, she visits Dr Harper's adult daughter Hilda and his adult son Dunstan, introducing herself as their half-sister Nicky. Hilda, who hated her father, is a recluse who lives in a marshland cottage with her rescue cats. Disturbed but intrigued by Nicky's visit, she sets out to investigate her family background. Did her father, respected in his profession but a tyrant at home, lead a double life? Why did her mother, a semi-invalid who sought comfort in religion, die so young? Meanwhile her brother Dunstan, already on the verge of a breakdown and appalled by Nicky's claim to be the "love child" of the father whom he worshipped, attempts to protect his family's reputation through desperate measures with disastrous results. The story, set in rural Kent and Sussex in 2005 with flashbacks to postwar Oxford and the 1960s London nightclub scene, ends with the discovery of a long-ago crime and a shocking twist.