Murder at the Chase — Eric Brown

Crime writer sleuth Donald Langham is faced with the classic locked-room conundrum in this engaging historical mystery

July, 1955. Donald Langham has interrupted his romantic break in rural Suffolk with the delectable Maria Dupre to assist a fellow writer. Alastair Endicott has requested Langham's help in discovering what's happened to his father, Edward, who seems to have disappeared without trace from inside his locked study.

Before he vanished, the elder Endicott had been researching a book on the notorious Satanist Vivian Stafford. Could the proposed biography have something to do with his disappearance? Does local resident Stafford really possess supernatural powers, as some believe?

As Langham and Dupre question those around them, it becomes clear that there have been strange goings-on in the sleepy village of Humble Barton. But is the village really haunted -- or does someone merely want it to look that way? With a further shocking discovery, the case takes a disturbing new twist.