In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other.

Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their friendship together begin to unravel. Is the truth buried amid the tangled relationships of these aging men and women and their memories? Will it emerge before it's too late?

Sad to say I was very disappointed in this. I found it very messy & with too many characters thrown in from the start I found it hard to keep track of the various relationships. I struggled with the timeline of events as they didn't seem to correlate properly especially with regard to John & Michael. Other things were contradictive too, no adults were supposed to have ever been in the qanats yet three girls saw Uncle James there!
The cover blurb says "....& a weary detective more concerned with current cases, must investigate a case of murder" Really? Apart from a brief mention after the initial discovery Quell is only notable by his absence, only being briefly alluded to near the end as the case is handed over. There wasn't even the usual misunderstandings & consequential fallouts that I love about Rendell's work as it mainly seemed to centre around a resurrected love affair.

Very disappointing although I did find this quote rather touching, if sad...
"When you get old, you don't have much emotion. It goes. At about seventy I'd say. All those things & people you were passionate about, angry or adoring or longing, they all go, & a dull kind of calm takes over. I used to worship Tom. Now he's dead I don't much care. that's how it is with me"

Released as part of the SEPTEMBER SAPPHIRE CHALLENGE (#53)





Congratulations - You've found a travelling book !

Here at BookCrossing we're trying to give books their own unique history by keeping a running log of all the places they've been and what their readers think of them.

You can help us to track this book's travels by taking a moment to make a journal entry - let us know where you found it, what you thought of it or where it's going next - write as much or as little as you like! You can remain anonymous or why not join us? If you decide to join us you will receive an alert every time someone new journals the book, helping you to follow it's travels as it meets new readers.

Enjoy the book!

(If you do decide to join Bookcrossing, please consider putting me,
Plum-crazy, as your referring member - thank you)