The Grass Widow's Tale

‘Listen to who’s talking. I’m not the one who goes hobnobbing with gunmen and such.’ Such is Bunty Felse’s light-hearted reply to her husband’s parting words of caution, as George is called away to London on urgent police business.

But left alone in the house, Bunty begins to feel depressed: she will be forty-one tomorrow and feels that, now their son Dominic has grown up, there is nothing left for her to do except grow older.

To shake off the black mood, she goes out to the local pub — where a chance meeting with a distraught stranger proves that her farewell words to George were horribly mistaken. Caught up in a terrifying situation, Bunty struggles desperately to hold on to the life which earlier stretched out endlessly before her…

In this penetrating study of human passions, Ellis Peters once again displays her remarkable talents as a writer of classic crime fiction.

Ellis Peters is the pseudonym of Edith Pargeter, the distinguished author of many historical novels, including the Heaven Tree trilogy and The Marriage of Meggotta (available from Macdonald). As Ellis Peters she also writes the bestselling Brother Cadfael mysteries. She lives in Shropshire.

Also by Ellis Peters in Macdonald

DEATH AND THE JOYFUL WOMAN

FALLEN INTO THE PIT

THE KNOCKER ON DEATH’S DOOR

A NICE DERANGEMENT OF EPITAPHS

BLACK IS THE COLOUR OF MY TRUELOVE’S HEART

RAINBOW’S END

Ellis Peters writing as Edith Pargeter

THE HEAVEN TREE TRILOGY

THE HEAVEN TREE

THE GREEN BRANCH

THE SCARLET SEED

THE MARRIAGE OF MEGGOTTA