Lesley Thomson's The Mystery of Yew Tree House included in the Times Best New Crime Fiction for September 2023

Lesley Thomson's new book The Mystery of Yew Tree House has been included in the Times best new crime fiction list for the month of September 2023.

Of the book, reviewer Mark Sanderson states:

Stella Darnell and her sometime squeeze Jack Harmon have officially retired from sleuthing. However, when an old house in the idyllic Sussex village of Bishopstone – next to the churchyard that contains the remains of Jack’s murdered mother – becomes available to let, the odd couple decide to spend a month in the country with Jack’s precocious seven-year-old twins. There’s no escape from death, though: the children soon discover a skeleton in a pillbox at the bottom of the overgrown garden.

The two-ply narrative continually loops back to the Second World War, when the weird sisters who now live in the annexe to Yew Tree House were mere girls – and a killer was on the loose. Michael Snace, a creepy young curate, is sniffing round their widowed mother, who, unimpressed, refers to him as Snake.

While Stella and Jack, aided and abetted by a journo friend, investigate the long-ago death, someone in the village is savagely murdered. Bishopstone, instead of being the ideal holiday location, turns out to be a place of poison, phantoms and pain. Lesley Thomson has created a complex mystery full of psychological suspense, worthy of Barbara Vine. She makes you feel the presence of evil.

Thomson joins authors including Gareth Rubin, Ann Cleeves, and James Ellroy. Read the full article here.

The Mystery of Yew Tree House is published by Head of Zeus on 14 September 2023.