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Crime fiction with Mat Coward: August 23, 2023
An impertinent detective, bereavement and vengeance in New York, an eye on the Lakes, and a Welsh Blair Witch

THE GOOD LIARS by Anita Frank (HQ, £16.99) takes place a couple of years after the end of World War I, when the Stilwells of Darkacre Hall can only dream of the life they knew before.

Once respected and deferred to, today they are openly shunned by the villagers. They live a lifeless existence, bound to each other by shameful secrets and mutual mistrust. 

The difficulty of hiring servants means they are even reduced to answering their own doorbell — an especially distasteful task when the visitor is a detective asking impertinent questions about the summer of 1914. 

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