It is 1939 and the Second World War looms ever closer. Blind war veteran, Frederick Rowlands, travels to the neutral territory of Ireland at the behest of Celia Swift, whose husband, Edward Swift, Lord Castleford, has been receiving mysterious death threats.

When a body is discovered, Castleford finds himself being accused of a murder he did not commit. As Castleford's trial begins, Rowlands must fight to save his friend's reputation - and his neck from the gallows. But will the Blind Detective identify the true killer in time, or will it be too late?

In the latest instalment of Christina Koning's acclaimed Blind Detective series, a country teeters on the knife-edge of war while a man's life also hangs in the balance .

Christina Koning has worked as a journalist, reviewing fiction for The Times, and has taught Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and Birkbeck, University of London. From 2013 to 2015, she was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge. She won the Encore Prize in 1999 and was long-listed for the Orange Prize in the same year.