An Inquiry into Love and Death

A young woman searches for the truth behind her uncle’s mysterious death in a town haunted by a restless ghost in this gripping novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Cold Cases.Oxford student Jillian Leigh works day and night to keep up with her studies—so to leave at the beginning of the term is next to impossible. But after her uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings. Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house. Is it Walking John, the two-hundred-year-old ghost who haunts Blood Moon Bay? And who beside the ghost is roaming the local woods at night? If Toby uncovered something sinister, was his death no accident? The arrival of handsome Scotland Yard inspector Drew Merriken, a former RAF pilot with mysteries of his own, leaves Jillian with more questions than answers—and with the added complication of a powerful, mutual attraction. Even as she suspects someone will do anything to hide the truth, she begins to discover spine-chilling secrets that lie deep within Rothewell…and at the very heart of who she is.

Katherine Webb, author of The Unseen Praise for The Haunting of Maddy Clare

“I thoroughly enjoyed it!...Simone clearly relishes and is steeped in the traditions of gothic fiction - in the best way. She conjures that secretive, hushed atmospher perfectly, and the story kept me turning pages from beginning to end. At once an intriguing mystery and an eerie ghost story, it had more than enough spine-tingling moments to keep me gripped.”

New York Times Bestselling Author Susanna Kearsley

“Chilling romantic suspense that evokes the lost era between the World Wars…Simply spellbinding.”

New York Times Bestselling Author Madeline Hunter

“Compelling and beautifully written.”

National Bestselling Author Deanna Raybourn

“An atmosphere that is deliciously creepy and a heroine you won’t soon forget.”

About the Author

Simone St. James is the award-winning author of  An Inquiry into Love and Death and The Haunting of Maddy Clare, which won two RITA awards from Romance Writers of America and an Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada.  She wrote her first ghost story, about a haunted library, when she was in high school, and spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and a spoiled cat.

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