From Rhys Bowen, the author of In Farleigh Field, comes the next Molly
Murphy mystery: The Ghost of Christmas Past.
Semi-retired private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is suffering from
depression after a miscarriage following her adventure in San Francisco
during the earthquake of 1906. She and her husband, Daniel, are invited
for Christmas at a mansion on the Hudson, and they gratefully accept,
expecting a peaceful and relaxing holiday season. Not long after they
arrive, however, they start to feel the tension in the house's
atmosphere. Then they learn that the host couple's young daughter
wandered out into the snow ten years ago and was never seen again.
Molly can identify with the mother's pain at never knowing what happened
to her child and wants to help, but there is so little to go on. No
ransom note. No body ever found. But Molly slowly begins to suspect that
the occupants of the house know more than they are letting on. Then, on
Christmas Eve, there is a knock at the door and a young girl stands
there. "I'm Charlotte," she says. "I've come home."