Jane Thynne’s second novel is another skilfully woven literary mystery, set in contemporary times and between the wars, that encompasses a quest into a man’s past, the complexities of wartime subterfuge and a love story of a woman torn between two brothers.
In the grounds of Foxhill, the country home of the late Sir Lewis Appleby, pioneering geneticist and icon of the left, stands a shell decorated summerhouse. At the height of a stifling summer, Jessica Leigh takes a break from her career as a Westminster lobbyist to accompany her boyfriend Steve Irvine to Foxhill where he is hosting an academic conference. She is not pleased when they are joined by Steve’s brother – and total opposite – Alex, a journalist, but it is with Alex that she discovers the beautiful ruined shell house. A gardener reveals that it was being restored by Sir Lewis as a monument to his love for his wife Katherine. Then Katherine vanished and the work was abandoned. But why, Jessica wonders, would anybody want to leave a man like Lewis Appleby? She is distracted when the biotechnology company she is hired to represent, attempts to suppress a dramatic new genetics discovery – and Alex, attracted to Jessica, finds himself asked to explore the company���s motivations. But the double narrative returns to the 1930s for the shocking answer to Katherine Appleby’s disappearance and its continuing reverberations.
Genre: General Fiction
In the grounds of Foxhill, the country home of the late Sir Lewis Appleby, pioneering geneticist and icon of the left, stands a shell decorated summerhouse. At the height of a stifling summer, Jessica Leigh takes a break from her career as a Westminster lobbyist to accompany her boyfriend Steve Irvine to Foxhill where he is hosting an academic conference. She is not pleased when they are joined by Steve’s brother – and total opposite – Alex, a journalist, but it is with Alex that she discovers the beautiful ruined shell house. A gardener reveals that it was being restored by Sir Lewis as a monument to his love for his wife Katherine. Then Katherine vanished and the work was abandoned. But why, Jessica wonders, would anybody want to leave a man like Lewis Appleby? She is distracted when the biotechnology company she is hired to represent, attempts to suppress a dramatic new genetics discovery – and Alex, attracted to Jessica, finds himself asked to explore the company���s motivations. But the double narrative returns to the 1930s for the shocking answer to Katherine Appleby’s disappearance and its continuing reverberations.
Genre: General Fiction
Praise for this book
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Jane Thynne's The Shell House