In July 1919, Rutledge travels to Cornwall after three members of an eminent family die in circumstances that appear unrelated. One of the dead is revealed as O. A. Manning, a reclusive poet whose wartime verse had helped Rutledge endure the trenches. The deaths lead him into a household marked by artistic ambition, mental illness and memories that have been controlled by those with the strongest voices.
The mystery examines the authority of family narratives and the unstable line between suicide, accident and murder. Rutledge’s admiration for the poet makes the case personal, while the Cornish setting isolates a group whose private tragedies have been hidden from outsiders. The investigation also deepens the series’ concern with the ways art can express trauma that society refuses to name.
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