'Two murders, over 100 years apart...
Following the acrimonious break up of her marriage and the searing experience of being puersued by an obsessed stalker, criminal defence attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to leave Albany and work in a major law firm in Manhattan.
Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home, a restored Victorian house in the historic New Jersey seaside resort town of Spring Lake. Her family had sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forbears, Madeline Shapley, then still a young girl, disappeared.
Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the skeleton of a young woman is found. She is identified as Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared from Spring Lake over four years ago. Within her skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it -a Shapely family heirloom.
In seeking to find the link between her family's past and the recent murder, Emily becomes a threat to a devious and seductive killer. A killer who has chosen her as his next victim...'

Bought at RAF Brampton Thrift shop for 30p. I don't remember reading this MHC so another new to me to scare the living daylights out of me late at night!

A really creepy read from MHC - well up to standard. I haven't read her novels for a while, so to go back is like (for me) to rediscover her for the first time again in many ways.
Emily Graham married a 'wrong un' (as my Nan would say) and after a bitter divorce, where her ex tried to take her for everything he could, she then found she had a stalker. A dangerous stalker it turned out,but he was caught and is in a psychiatric detention centre. To try to escape these trials, Emily escapes to the New Jersey seaside town of Spring Lake, and ends up buying the house of her great-grandparents. They sold up in the 19th Century after their daughter disappeared one night and was never found - the same fate took three of her friends within two years. When contractors, building a pool in the back garden, find two skeletons, one being one of the missing girls from 1893, and another far more recent, the latter clutching a ring that belonged to Emily's relative, Emily's legal interest is piqued. Putting aside the new job in the Assistant DA's office, she starts to research the town's history and the people involved at the time of the Victorian disappearances.
But what Emily doesn't know is that a modern day killer is stalking his victims in a twisted homage to the original murderer. And he has singled out Emily as the last victim in his murderous re-creation.
On top of all this, Emily's stalker is back.
A read that kept me turning pages, desperate to find out what was going on behind the net curtains of an obviously wealthy community where all is not as it would appear. A goodie, now ready for another reader :)
AVL.

Requested by Angelslater in Essex so this book will be in the post as soon as I get her address :) Happy to RABCK on to a new reader.
Enjoy!

cant wait to read just been sent this book thanks.
recieved from agnesxnitt

So I had to pop to Chelmsford library today, to collect a copy of "Ruin From The Air: The Atomic Mission to Hiroshima" which I'd reserved on recommendation of a work colleague. Funny how you start taking about one thing (computer patching and security updates actually, I think), and end up talking about the effects of the Atom bomb...

As I walked through the atrium outside the library towards its main entrance, I thought I saw in my peripheral vision a book which appeared to be lying on the plinth of the large life-size "Stargate"-Mandala-Feng Shui-thing they have out on permanent display there.

Throwing myself to the ground, I assumed a covert flat stance and crawled on my belly "snake-like" towards the Library's "Love Food, Hate Waste!" tabletop display that was set up in the atrium, secreting myself behind a compost bin forming part of the display.

From this hidey-hole, I was able to observe the black-covered book on the plinth that looked like a Bible or similar, and I also spotted a second book across the other side of the floor, balanced on another display table strewn with leaflets for a local pantomime or similar.

Not being a religious person I immediately discarded the possible Bible, and so adjusting my glasses to thermal "book-hunt" mode, I targeted the second book instead.

Making sure I couldn't be seen, I took a used teabag from the compost heap also on display and smeared it's contents on my face, "camouflage"-style, a la "Rambo", and then climbing up on a adjacent leaflet stand, I assumed an unseen high vantage point and planned my next move.

Taking a length of washing line from my pocket that I'd removed from the adjacent recycling display table, I pulled off the terry-cloth nappies from it, and fashioned a crude lasso at one end, moving a number of pegs to help form a circular "hook". Taking one end in my hand, I coiled the remaining line around one arm and waited until a number of pensioners had hobbled past before stealthily throwing the line towards my intended target.

Success! I hit it first time and slowly began to drag it first off the table, then carefully across the floor towards me.

Ignoring the stares of another group of pensioners, and a gaggle of schoolchildren who were inside the library pressing their faces against the glass of the windows to watch, I continued to reel the line in, until at last I had the book in my grasp!

Emitting a cry worthy of the "Predator" himself, I beat my fists on my chest, and leaped down from the leaflet stand, scattering terrified library users, and Essex County Council staff alike as I ran animal-like back to my lair.

I shall add this book to "Mount To Be Read", and will either give it a go after I finish my current book; "The Fry Chronicles", and if I can't get on with it, it'll be ideal to release outside Chelmsford Prison, given it's subject matter!

Thanks for the release!

Regards.