The dead will not lie down. And the parish wants a man hanged for it.
Candlemas Eve, 1773. In the Welsh Tract of Delaware, three members of the Pryce family have died in a fortnight. Each saw a yellow light in the corner of the room before the end. Each was found the next morning sitting upright in the coffin. And each time, a blind old man came down from Iron Hill to eat the bread laid on the corpse, and the coffin knocked.
Three knocks for the asking. A pause for the listening.
The frightened parish blames Morgan Rhys, the sin-eater who carries their dead's sins for sixpence a funeral. Their minister wants him driven out. Their neighbors want him dead.
Skeptic and natural philosopher Gideon Hale wants the truth. But with Caesar Rodney snowbound at the local inn and a hearing set for Thursday noon, Hale has four days to find a poisoner hiding among the mourners, before the parish takes justice into its own hands.
And his oldest friend, Constable Reginald Lloyd, is keeping a secret. Something with no shadow has followed Lloyd's bloodline across the sea, and it is waiting for him to answer.
The fourth knock is for whoever is meant to answer.
A gothic mystery steeped in Welsh folklore and colonial history, for readers of Sarah Waters, Susan Hill and Stuart Turton.
Book 2 of the Gideon Hale Mysteries. It can be read on its own, or after Curse of the Red Witch.
