Book
Death in the Castle
First published 1965
Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary live in a decaying English castle that their family can no longer afford to maintain. They have no direct heir, few paying visitors and two intolerable proposals for the estate: conversion into a state prison or removal to America as a museum. Rumours of hidden treasure offer a possible escape, but every attempt to secure the future exposes another uncertainty within the household.
The castle's servants are as important as its owners, especially the devoted butler Wells and his enigmatic daughter Kate. Eccentricity, secrecy and financial desperation blur the line between comedy and danger as the search for an acceptable inheritance becomes entangled with a death. The novel uses the threatened country house as both a mystery setting and a portrait of an aristocratic order that can no longer rely on property alone for survival.
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