A Hovering of Vultures

What better victim in a Robert Barnard mystery than a literary poseur? And what better place to find such character than a society set up in the honour of the dubiously talented authors Susannah and Joshua Sneddon? These two authors toiled in the early years of the 20th century at their creative tasks in a remote cottage of Mikelwike, a small village in Yorkshire. Neither wrote masterpieces but Susanna's books were always more popular than her brother's. That's perhaps why Joshua one day killed his sister with an axe and then shot himself in the head. Many years later, there is a renewed interest in the Sneddons, inspired by entrepreneur Gerald Suzman. He bought the Sneddon cottage, with plans to open a museum and to found a literary society called the Sneddon Fellowship. Sneddon enthusiasts from as far away as America, Norway and Japan gather at Suzman's invitation for the inauguration of the society during a Sneddon Weekend. DC Charlie Peace joins the party, intrigued by Suzman's unexpected literary interest in the Sneddond. Suzman's history shows a far greater penchant for wealth than literature, so he must have discovered a source of profit in the Fellowship. But where? Charlie fears that an elderly American lady called Lettie Farraday may know too much for her own good. Lettie, who has returned to Mikelwike, the village of her birth, for the first time in fifty years, is the only conferee who personally knew the Sneddons. Too much knowledge may be dangerous...

This is one of Barnard's best. After you have long finished the book, you can't get the sound of beating and flapping wings out of your head.