A Ghost In The Machine

Every man should have a hobby. It keeps them out of mischeif and from under their wives' feet. A nice bit of DIY, gardening, bowls or snooker, mysterious activities in the potting shed - fine. But killing machines, Dennis Brinkley's hobby - something else. Not what you'd call a nice hobby at all.

SOME SECRETS ARE DEADLY IN THIS WORLD-
AND THE NEXT...

Scrupulously honest and warm-hearted, solicitor Dennis Brinkley was about the most-liked person in the peaceful country village of Forbes Abbot. His only eccentricity: restoring fearsome ancient war machines. So when he's killed by a cannonball from one of his contraptions, even Chief Inspector Barnaby believes it's a freak accident. Until an opportunistic medium claims Dennis is about to reveal his murderer to her ...and soon turns up deceased herself.

Now, with two people dead and a possible witness missing, Barnaby must untangle the sinister doings and passionate obsessions underneath Forbes Abbot's vale of seeming tranquility. And the eminently rational chief inspector must uncover evidence of things not seen before time runs out-and a calculating killer forever gets beyond his reach.

"Graham's ingeniously constructed novels featuring Chief Inspector Barnaby are actually clever satires, closer to Robert Barnard than Agatha Christie in their cruel theatricality."
-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"The investigation is top rate, but it is the eccentricity of the villagers that make for a fantastic cozy-like tale."
-Midwest Book Review