When a group of powerful Irish Protestants and Catholics gather at a country house, Ashworth Hall, to discuss Irish home rule, contention is to be expected, but when the meeting’s moderator, government bigwig Ainsley Greville, is found murdered in his bath, negotiations seem doomed. To make matters worse, it seems that the late Greville had a less than savoury private life. Pitt and Charlotte must root out the truth or the simmering passions and hatred may boil over to plunge Ireland into civil war and destruction…

• No. on Livres Hebdo Bestseller list