Shadow Of Death [Hardcover]

'Agnes is a fascinating and complicated woman who inevitably looks at the world from an oblique angle' Val McDermid 'Those who expect Sister Agnes to be a cloistered violet are in for a stimulating surprise... She is not Miss Marple with a wimple but a suffering, struggling human being whose brilliance in detection is matched by her compassion' Sister Wendy Beckett

Agnes is up to her neck in books. Having been asked to help sort out the library of the nearly defunct Order in Bermondsey before the building is sold, she is trawling through piles of tatty Victoriana and mawkish lives of the saints. However, the 17th-century Hawker archive, a collection of beautifully preserved books on spells and magic as well as hand-written journals, does catch her eye. These tell the story of Alice, her husband Thomas and their daughter who died in infancy. Alice did not long survive her.

Aliceâs story seems to haunt the present. The building, now an NHS day center for the mentally ill, is the backdrop for a modern motherâs fears for the safety of herself and her child Agnes is increasingly drawn into the predicament of Jeanne-Marie and her daughter Leila as well as Aliceâs narrative. The line between past and present becomes hazy, as Jeanne-Marie, like Alice before her, is prey to the men in her life and depression.

When unexplained and horrible things start happening and Agnes becomes convinced that buyers are after something more than the obvious in the Hawker archives, she hurries to protect Leila and lay some ghosts to rest.

Alison Joseph was educated at Leeds University. After graduating she worked as a presenter on a local radio station then, moving back to London, for Channel 4. She later became a partner in an independent production company and one of its commissions was a series about women and religion. She has since worked as a reader for BBC Radio Drama.