Robert Goddard is a very popular and bestselling author and this book is in a long line of successful titles. Plotline is the most important aspect of the story with the characters, perhaps, lightly delineated, but the complex twists and turns of the story are deftly handled as one would expect from an expert.
The story is set mostly in the present day but there are some flashbacks to the early life of the main protaganist, Nick, and also to ancestors possessing his rather unusual surname of Paleologus. The story begins with the assembling of Nick and his siblings in Cornwall on a mission to try to persuade their father to sell his rambling old house, Trennor, for an amazingly lucrative amount. The old man is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps shortly after the family meeting. As the bodies begin to pile up Nick learns how the house is involved in the local history of the area and is a possible 17th century hiding place for the famous Doom Window from nearby St Neot's church.
This is a very readable story which has references to the Holy Grail, King Arthur's (supposed) castle at Tintagel, the Knights Templar and the Crusades thrown in for good measure. It would probably make a good tv drama or film with the unexpected incidents and intricate plot making gripping viewing.
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