The Masters of the House [Paperback]

The death of his wife in childbirth sends unemployed Dermot Heenan into such a tailspin - after a day muttering about how he's been justly punished, he retreats to silence and his bed - that his children are afraid he'll be institutionalized and they'll be parceled out to the tender mercies of Her Majesty's government. So the two eldest, Annie and Matthew, plot to keep Dermot's decline from the world by taking on the management of the house, their two younger brothers, and their incoherent father. All goes surprisingly well until Dermot's brassy ex-lover Carmen O'Keefe (no wonder he was repentant, reflects Matthew) comes around looking for him. After an initial skirmish, Matthew and Annie tell Carmen that Dermot doesn't want anything to do with her; but this tactic, so successful at first, doesn't prevent Carmen from turning up again in their garden, dead. The children have no energy to wonder whodunit; instead, they feverishly hide her body, scan the Leeds newspapers for headlines that never come, and pray that they've heard the last of Carmen - never suspecting that her mother-in-law, Connie, will soon follow her steps to their door. Connie's soothing advent, which at first seems to let all the tension out of the Heenans' story, ends by provoking as many surprises as you'd expect from the versatile Barnard (A Hovering of Vultures, 1993) in this memorably off-kilter tale. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The death of Mary was not unexpected. What was unexpected was that this would drive her husband over the brink into madness. As Carmen O'Keefe starts to ask questions, his children wonder whether they have penetrated the circumstances behind their father's madness. Especially when they find a body. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Ellen Heenan’s older children could never have predicted that their mother’s death would drive their father over the edge and into madness. Nor could they have known that this would force them to take the first steps in a dangerous game – hiding his insanity at all costs.

In the beginning their efforts succeed beyond all expectation and their father’s strange behaviour is interpreted as desperate grief. But then the prying begins, and the children come to dread the scrutiny of blowsy Carmen O’Keefe. As her attentions become ever more aggressive, they start to wonder whether they have grasped the full truth behind the situation. Especially when they find a body…

“The psychological suspense is chilling”
THE TIMES

“Barnard at the very top of his form”
SCOTSMAN

Robert Barnard was born and brought up in Essex. After reading English at Balliol College, Oxford, he worked for a time for the Fabian Society, and in 1961 became lecturer in English at the University of New England, in New South Wales. He taught in Norway for seventeen years from 1966, and in 1983 came back to Britain to write full time. As well as nearly thirty mysteries, he has written books on Dickens, Agatha Christie and a history of English Literature. He and his wife now live in Leeds.