(From the publisher):
Millicent Pluke, the devoted wife of Detective Inspector Montague Pluke, stumbles across a woman's body by Devil's Dump, a pool in a remote North Yorkshire moorland stream. Her discovery means Pluke must steel himself not to hunt forgotten horse troughs - the great passion of his life - but instead to track down a murderer.
As his inquiries intensify, Pluke suspects the ruined Trough House may provide important clues and when he discovers the body has previously been buried but flushed from its well-hidden grave by the ferocious St. Margaret's Day flood, his knowledge of moorland folklore becomes vital to the investigation.
A maiden's garland was discovered with the body, but why would a murderer take the time and trouble to bury the garland - a symbol of purity - with the victim?
Pluke's research unearths the worrying fact that others have also died in Devil's Dump. In 1821 a shepherd named Featherstone drowned in its depths and again, in 1872, a tragedy occurred there when another Featherstone died - this time the victim was a six-year-old girl who was later buried with a maiden's garland. And now Susan Featherstone has gone missing from the dale - and she is an agent for an artist who always depicts a shepherd in her paintings of the moors. But the artist too has gone missing, so is Susan a victim - or a killer?
And so it comes about that the eccentric Detective Inspector Pluke must dig deep into the family histories of Thordale if he is to resolve the mystery of the maiden's garland.
Original title: Garland for a Dead Maiden
Genre: Fiction→ Crime and Mystery→ Detective Story and Detectives