"In Osterley, a marshy Norfolk backwater, a man lies dying
on a rainy autumn night. While natural causes will surely
claim Herbert Baker's life in a matter of hours, his last
request baffles his family and friends. Baker, a devout
Anglican, inexplicably demands to see the town's Catholic
priest for a last confession. The old man dies without
knowing that the very priest who gave him comfort will
follow him to the grave just a few weeks later - the
victim of an appalling murder." "The local police are
convinced the evidence points to an interrupted robbery,
and have named a suspect, Matthew Walsh. But the dead
priest's bishop insists that Scotland Yard oversee the
investigation. A simple task for Rutledge, a man not yet
well enough to return to full duty. The Inspector draws on
years of experience and a war-honed intuition as he finds
himself uncovering secrets that the local authorities
would prefer not to see explored. Surely, they reason, it
is better to charge an outsider - Matthew Walsh - with
murder than to learn that someone in this tightly knit
community would commit such a horrendous crime. And yet
there are those, Rutledge soon discovers, who held grudges
against the priest that had little to do with God or the
Church." No one in Osterley is aware that Rutledge hears
voices - or, rather, one haunting voice: that of a soldier
he was forced to execute during the War. It is with the
voice of Hamish MacLeod, by turns second-guessing and
taunting him, that Rutledge begins a journey toward the
devastating truth that will unlock the secrets of Osterley
and pare away its layers of deception. And in piecing
together a different story, Rutledge encounters a chain of
events that stretches from these brooding marshes to one
of the greatest sea disasters in history - and who is the
secretive woman who survived it? Rutledge comes to believe
that he alone can stop a killer from striking again.
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