The Key In The Lock

Beth Underdown Viking, £14.99

The gloriously Gothic second novel from Beth Underdown tells a story of smouldering secrets, lingering guilt and hidden love.

It’s 1918 and Ivy Boscawen is mired in grief. Her only son, Tim, has been killed in the Great War and, while her days are spent mourning, her dreams are haunted by the death of another child in a fire at Polneath House 30 years earlier.

Back then, Ivy was the doctor’s daughter, sent to the house to keep an eye on maid Agnes who was injured in the blaze. But sullen Agnes is also suspected of setting the house alight, her fate to be decided at an inquest.

Polneath is old and dilapidated with dark corridors and gloomy, cobwebbed corners, neglected by its owner, the drunken, evil-tempered Mr Tremain.

His grandson William died in the fire and Mr Tremain’s violent temper adds to the unease in the eerie house.

His dashing son, Edward, William’s mourning father, is the sole ray of light in Ivy’s life.

But as Ivy is drawn into the family drama, she’s blinded to the truth of what’s really unfolding under the Tremains’ roof.

Underdown ratchets up the tension, slipping between past and present as Ivy teases out her memories and gains a fresh perspective on long-ago events, until the truth is revealed and ghosts are laid to rest.