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For centuries residents of the Lake District have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the famous massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And that he told the story of the staging to his old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem ? a poem that remained hidden lest it expose Wordsworth to the gallows for harbouring a fugitive. Wordsworth specialist Jane Gresham, herself a native of the Lake District, feels compelled to discover once and for all whether the manuscript ever existed ? and whether it still exists today. But as she pursues each new lead, death follows hard on her heels. When torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, old wives' tales come swirling to the surface. Suddenly Jane is at the heart of a 200-year-old mystery that still has the power to put lives on the line. Against the dramatic backdrop of England's Lake District a drama of life and death plays out, its ultimate prize a bounty worth millions.
Paperback, 465 pages, published 2006
Author: Val McDermid